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THE SLAVE POWER. 



THE SLAVE POWER : 



CHAEACTEE, CAEEEE, & PEOBABLE DESIGNS 



AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE REAL ISSUES INVOLVED 
IN THE AMERICAN CONTEST. 



J. E. CAIRNES, M. A. 

PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN QUEEN's COLLEGE, 
GALWAY ; AND LATE WHATELY PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 



LONDON : 

PARKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND. 

1862. 

2'/te right of traus/dUun is reserved. 






" I could easily prove that almost all the diffurenccs, which may be remarked 
b*twe*n the charact^re of the Americans in the Southern and Xorthem States, 
have originated in Slavery." — Dt Tocqwvillt. 



» b. WHIII 1M> »t», rillXTIJlH, KI-MIIM. 



TO JOHN STUART MILL, ESQ. 

Dear Sir, 

I have great satisfaction in prefixing 

your name to the present work. Its appearance 
on my page wiU show that I have not engaged in 
speculation on an important subject without some 
qualification for the task. The sanction it gives to 
the views which I advocate will furnish an apology 
for the confidence with which they are urged-a 
confidence which, divided as ophiion is on the sub- 
ject of Avhich I treat, might otherwise appear unbe- 
coming. Lastly, the opportunity of connecting my 
name in public with that of one from whose works 
I have profited more largely than from those of any 
living ^mter, was one which I could not easily 

forego. 

Believe me, dear Sir, 

AVith sincere respect. 

Very truly yours, 

J. E. Cairnes. 

1st May, 1862. 



PREFACE. 

It is proper that I should state the circumstances 
under which the present volume is offered to the 
public. The substance of it formed the matter of 
a course of lectures delivered about a year since 
in the University of Dublin. In selecting the sub- 
ject of North American slavery I was influenced 
in the first instance by considerations of a purely 
speculative kind — my object being to show that 
the course of history is largely determined by the 
action of economic causes. To causes of this de- 
scription, it seemed to me, the fortunes of slavery in 
North America — its establishment in one half of 
the Union and its disappearance from the other — 
were directly to be ascribed ; while to that insti- 
tution, in turn, the leading differences in the cha- 
racter of the Northern and Southern people, as 
well as that antagonism of interests between the 
two sections which has issued in a series of political 
conflicts extending over half a century, were no less 



Mil I'UEFACE. 

di>tiiKily tnic-cablc Tlic ^.•<)U^^c ul" events, however, 
ftinoe I first took up the suhjcet, has given to it an 
intert'st fur other than speculative, and lias rendered 
conclusions, of \vhi<h the value (it" they possessed 
any) was little more tiian seientiiie, directly appli- 
cable to problems of imme(liate and momentous 
interest. Under these eircumstanees I have been 
induced to extend consideralilv the original ])lan 
ofmv investigations, and to give the whole sidjject 
a popular and practical treatment, in the ho[)e of 
contributing something to the elucidation of a ques- 
tion of \ ast imjtortince, not only to America, but 
to the whole civilized world. 

The rapid movement <tf events, aceompanied by 
no less raj»id fluctuations in public opinion, during 
the progress of the W(trk, will exi)lain, and, it is 
hoped, will procure indulgence for, some obvious 
imperfections. Some topics, it is prol)able, will be 
found to be treati'd with greater fulness, and some 
arguments to be urired with greater vehemence, than 
the present position of affairs or the pi-esent state 
of public feeling niMV aj>pear fn re(piire. For 
example, 1 have been at some pains to show that 
the (question at issue between Xortii and South is 
not one of tariffs — a thesis presciibe<l to me bv the 



PREFACE. ijjj 

State of the discussion six months ago, when the 
affirmative of this view was pertinaciously put for- 
ward by writers in the interest of the South, but 
which, at the present time, when this explanation 
of the war appears to have been tacitly abandoned^ 
cannot but appear a rather gratuitous task. 

In a certain degree, indeed, the same remark 
applies to the main argument of the work ; for, 
in spite of elaborate attempts at mystification, the 
real cause of the war and the real issue at stake 
are every day forcing themselves into prominence 
with a distinctness which cannot be much longei| 
evaded. Whatever we may think of the tendencies 
of democratic institutions, oi- of the influence oj 
territorial magnitude on the American character^ 
no theory framed upon these or upon any otheS 
incidents of the contending parties, however inge^ 
niously constructed, will suffice to conceal the fact, 
that it is slavery which is at the bottom of this 
quarrel, and that on its determination it depends; 
whether the Power which derives its strenf^th from 
slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and 
increased prestige, or be now once for all efi'ectually 
broken. This is the one view of the case which 
every fresh occurrence in the progress of events 



X I'HEFACE. 

teniU to strengthen ; and it i> tlii:- which it is tlie 
ohject of the present work to enforce. 

r.ut, ahhou^'li tlie development of the movement 
n»uv have dcjirived the followino: speculations of 
Rome of that novelty wlii-li thcv ini;:ht liave pos- 
sessed when they were first (hlivered, still it is h(>]»ed 
that they will not he without their use — that, while 
thev will assist honest iiKpiinrs to form a sound 
judjrment upon a (piestion which is still the suhject 
of much designed and much unconscious misrepre- 
sentation, thev may possess a more permanent inte- 
rest, as illustrating hy a striking example the value 
of a fruitful hut litth- understood instrument of his- 
torical incjuiry — that which investigates the influ- 
ence of material interests on the destinies of man- 
kind. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY— THE CASE STATED. 

Causes of the War - . ^^^'^ 

- - - 2 

The popular view - . . _ _ 

Its superficiality 

Slavery the central problem of American history - 

The commercial theory - . . . . 

The claim of independence : how to be estimated - - 15 

Eeal cause of secession - . . . . ,/'j 

Tjue origin of the war obscured by its proximate occasion - jg 

"War the only arbitrament - - . . . 
Views of the Xorth : 

The Unionist sentiment - - - . . 

The Anti-Slavery sentiment - - .. . 

Eapid growth of the Anti-Slavery sentiment - . 28 

Present aspect of the question - - . - 30 

CHAPTEE II. 

THE ECGXGMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY. 

Different fortunes of slavery in the K'orth and South 
Various explanations of the phenomenon : 

Theory of diversity of character in the original founders 3 5 

Theory of climate and race - - . - 3O 

The explanation of climate inadequate - . 3 - 

Alleged indolence of the negro groundless - - 40 



24 

25 

2: 



V I'HKKACE. 

tends to strciijrtlicn ; aiul it i> tlii^ Avliirh it is tlie 
obji'ct of the present uork to enforce. 

lUit, althou«rli the developnient of the movement 
may liave deprived the following speculations of 
Bome of that novelty which they mijrht have pos- 
sessed wlien they were lirst delivered, still it is hoi)ed 
that tliey will not he without their use — that, while 
they will assist honest iufpiirers to form u sound 
iud«rment upon a (piestion which is still the suhject 
of much designed and much unconscious misrepre- 
sentation, tluy may possess a more permanent inte- 
rest, as illustratiuLT hy Ji striking example the value 
of a fruitful hut little understood instrument of his- 
torical incpiirv — that which investigates the influ- 
eni-e of nuiterial interests on the destinies of nian- 
kintl. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY — THE CASE STATED, 

Causes of the AVar -...._ ^^§'^ 
The popular view - . . _ 

Its superficiality 

Slavery the central problem of American history - . (% 

The commercial theory - . . _ 

The claim of independence : how to be estimated - - 15 

Eeal cause of secession .... Y7'; 

Tjue origin of the war obscured by its proximate occasion - jg 
War the only arbitrament - - . . 

Views of the Xorth : 

The Unionist sentiment - - . . 

The Anti-Slavery sentiment 

Eapid growth of the Anti-Slavery sentiment - . 28 

Present aspect of the question - . . - 30 

CHAPTEE II. 

THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY. 

Different fortunes of slavery in the Xorth and South - fQ 

Various explanations of the phenomenon : 

Theory of diversity of character in the original founders 35 

Theory of climate and race - - . -36 

The explanation of climate inadequate 

Alleged indolence of the negro groundless - 



24 

2: 



■■>/ 
40 



li CONTENTS. 

Page 

ue solution of the proMem — Etouomio - - - ^42) 

Merits ami ilefects of f*lav»' labour - - - - 44 

Merita und ilffi-cts of frt-e labour - 47 

Comimrotivo efficiency of slave unci fi-ec labour 48 

A','riiultun»l capabilities of North and South - - 5° 

Slave ami five products - - - - ' \^ 

Further conditions essential to the success of slave labour - S3 

Fertility of tho soil - - - 54 

Extent of territory - - - - 55 

llxlmusting effects of slave culture - - - - 5^ 

General conclusion - - - - 5° 

CHAPTER III. 

INTERNAL OnOANIZATIOX OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

F.conomic success of slavery, in what sense conceded - ^6o 
-tructure of a slave society moulded by its economic condi- 
tions - - - - 

Agricultui-e — tho sole career for slavery - - -66 

Exigencies of slave agriculture - - - - ;jf7 
Uesult^ : 

Magnitude of plantations - - - - 68 

Indebtedness of planters - - - 69 

Unequal distribution of wealth - - - - 7° 

"Waste lands in slave countries - - - 7' 

Social consetpiences ... - - Qyif 

'Hie * mean whit4'3' - - - ■ " 75 

industrial development of Slave Stiites i.reiiiatunly arrcsteil 77 

Net results of slave industry - . . ^.^Sp 

Constitution of slave societies eRseiilially oligarchical - 85 

liantful inlluence of the slave oligarchy falsely charged on 

democracy - - - 88 

I jich principle to Ik) Usled by its prop* r fruits - 90 
Character of the Slave Tower ... \^ 



64 



CONTENTS. XIU 

CHAPTEE IV. 

TENDENCIES OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

Page 

In what direction are slave societies moving 1 - - 94 

Importance of the question - - - "95 

Presumption in favour of modern slavery derived from the 

experience of ancient - - - - 96 

Three circumstances connected with modern slavery destroy 
the force of the analogy : 

I. Difference of race and colour - - - 99 

Its effects - - - - - - 100 

II. Growth of modern commerce - - - i o i 
Its effects : 

In enhancing the value of crude labour, and thus 

augmentmg the resources of slavery - -103 

In superseding the necessity of education, and thus 

perpetuating servitude - - - - 105 

Modern slavery extends its despotism to the mind - 106 

III. The slave trade : 

Its twofold functions in the modern system : 

In relation to the consuming countries - - no 

In relation to the breeding countries - - 112 

Division of labour between the old and new states - 114 

The slave trade securely founded in the principles of 

population - - - - - -116 

The analogy of cattle breeding - - - 11 8 

CHAPTER V. 

INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

Outline of the economy of slave societies - - - /^"^ 

They include no element of progress - - . - 122 

The mean whites - - - - - - 123 

Gro'VA'th of regular industry among them a moral impossi- 
bility ------- 124 

Consequences of the absence of regular industry - ^126 
Extreme sparseness of population - - -127 

Incompatibility of this witli civilized progress - - 129 



\JV CONTENTS. 

Page 

The slave* ami their masU-rs - '3' 
I'rD8{>oct« of eiuuiiciputiuli in the natural cuurse of iiittni;il 

deVflopmeut - - - ^3 2 

I nheifnt dilfuulty of the problem - '32 

Modern precedents inapplicahle - - - - ^33 

Kcononiic causfs not to Ix* rt'lied on - - - ^34 
I'olitieal iui<l social motives the real stivn;,4h of American 

sluviTy - - - - - 13S 
FurtluT «upix)rt to slavery in th<^ ethics ami theology of 

the 8<»uth - - - ... - 140 

(JroMrth of the pro-slavery sentiment - 142 

Its al)sorl)ing stren^'th ... - - 14J 

It.s universality ..---- 14^ 

Hopelessness of the slave's position - - - 146 

Social cost of the system - - - - - 147 

'rcrntri.sm - - - - - - - 148 

ClIAPTEP. VI. 

EXTEHNAL roljry OK M.AVE SOCIETIES. 

Its ag«,'essivc character - - - - 151 

Twofold source of the aggressive spirit : 

Tlje industrial - - - - - - 152 

The moral - - - - - ■ '55 

'i'endency of slave society to foster amhition - - 156 

Narrow scope for its indulgence - - - - ^57 

The extension of slavery — its sole resource - - - 158 

< 'oncentration of aim promoted 1))' antagonism - - ijjp 

Position of the South in the Union, naturally inferior to 

that of the North - - - - i^i 

< ompen.'yiting forces : 

The three liftlis voto - - - 164 

Superior capacity in the South for combined action - 166 

I >cmocratic alliance : its basis . . . . j^p 

I'crniH of the Ijargain - - - - - j 70 

Twofold motive of southern aggression - - - i;i 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page 

The political motive 111 aiiily operative - - - 172 

True source of this motive - - - - ^73 
Relation of the political motive to the federal position of 

the South ------ 175 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE CAREER OF THE SLAVE POWER. 

Position of slavery at the Revolution - - - A77] 

Rise of the cotton trade - - - - - Vj %B 

Early progress of the planters - - - ■ ^79 

Acquisition of the Louisiana Territory - - -180 

Missouri claimed as a slave state - - - -181 

Motives to territorial aggrandisement - - - 182 

Importance of ^Missouri - - - - - 1 83 

Opposition of the ^North - - - - - 1 84 

The Missouri Compromise - - - - - 185 

The Seminole War - - - - - 1 86 

Designs upon Texas - - - - - 187 

The tactics of aggression - - - - - 188 

Views of the annexationists - - - - 1 89 

Texas annexed - - - - - - 190 

Mexican war — division of the spoil - - -191 

State of parties in 1850 - - - - - 192 

Designs upon Kansas - - - - - '93 

Obstacle presented by the Missouri Compromise - - 193 

The Kansas and Nebraska Bill — squatter sovereignty - 195 

Kansas thrown open for settlement - - - 196 

Preparations of the Slave Power - - - - 197 

Invasion of the territory - - - - - 198 

The Leavenworth Constitution - - - - 199 

Atrocities of the Border Ruffians - - - - 200 

Reaction — defeat of the Slave Power - - - 201 

Alarm in the North . . . - - 202 

Formation of the Republican party - - - 203 

First trial of strength of the new party - - - 204 



\V1 CONTENTS. 

Paprt 

Hopeful prospects ... 20;^ 

^"•uthcrn jKjlicy of "Tlinruugh " . . - . \^2flfr' 

I. Kt'vival of the African slave trade - 107 
Agitation for reopening tho African slave trade 208 
Importation of slaves actually commenced - - 210 

II. Perversion of tho Constitution - - - 212 
Claim of protection to slave property throughout the 

Union - - - - - - 213 

A judicial decision necessary - - - - 214 

la-construction of the iSupi-eme Court - - - 21.5 
l)n*d Scott case - - - -'216 

EllVct of the decision - - - - - 2 1 7 

Furtlit'r n*<juireni<'iit — a reliahle government - 218 

Breach with tho Democratic party — Secession - - 220 

Apology fur Southern aggression - - - - 221 

Aggression of the Slave Power, in what sense defensive - 222 

The apology admits the chai-ge - - - - 224 

Attempt of John Brown ----- 225 

Its jilacc in current history ----- 226 

CHAPTEK VITT. 

THE DESIGNS OF TOE SLAVE POWER. 

Essentitd character of Slave society unchanged by indepen- 

denie - - - - - - - 228 

Inherent vices of the Slave Power intensilitd by its new 

position ------- 230 

Possible conditions of independence - - - 232 

L Limitation of slavery to its present area - - 233 

Ijcsults of this plan - - - - - " 234 

II. Teiritories opened alike to free and slave colonization 235 
Probable effects - - - 236 

III. ICqual jiartition of tlic Territorieri - - 238 
Argument by which this scheme is defended 239 
Paradox involved in this view - - 239 
Geographical conditions ignored 240 



CONTENTS. XVll 

Page 

Northern jealousy not a sufficient safeguard - - 242 

European intervention still less to be relied on - 244 

Modification of slavery involved in the success of the __ 

South - - - - - - - 1 24j5 

Probability of a revival of the African Slave Trade - - ^47 

Irresistible inducements ....-- 249 

The only countcrmotive - - - - - 250 

Presumption from the past - - - - - 251 

Public spirit among the Southern party - - - 25 1 

Sacrifice of particular to general interests - - - 252 
Sectional resistance poAverless before the exigencies of public 

policy ...---- 254 

Eesults ..-..-. 256 

CHAPTEE IX. 

GENERAL CONCLUSIOMS. 

Duty of Europe — neutrality - - - - 258 

Impolicy of intervention - - - - - 260 

Obligation to render moral support - - - 261 

Two modes of settlement equally to be deprecated - - 262 

Practical issues at the present time - - - 264 

I. Eeconstruction of the Union : 

Subjugation of the South, how far justifiable - - 266 
Subjugation of the South, how far practicable - - 271 
Eeconstruction of the Union, how far expedient - 277 
Necessity of a recourse to despotic expedients - - 279 
Plan for dispensuig with despotism by reforming South- 
ern society - - - - - - 280 

The condition of time ignored - - - - 282 

Disturbing effects of immigration - - - 283 

II. Secession under conditions : 

Two cardinal ends to be kept in view - - - 285 

Peculiar position of the Border States - - - 287 

Mr. Lincoln's proposal : its opportuneness - - 288 

Free cultivators in the Border States - - - 289 



sWll CONTEXTS. 

I'lige 

Facilities for incorjxjratiou ... - 290 

ITie line of the MissLssippi - - - - 291 

Iho negro (juestion — three conditions to be satisfied - 292 

I . Immediate and wholesale emancipation : 

Main dilliculty of the problem - - - 295 

The West Indian experiment ; its lesson - - 297 

NatunU dilliculties enlianced ill tlie South - - 299 

Imix)ssibility of j)rotecting the negro - - - 300 

The ' mean whites' ; their coiTupting iiilluence - 301 

II. Progressive emancipation : 

Advantage of dealing witli the evil in detail - - 302 

Facilities offered by society in the Border States - 303 

Operation of natui'al causes in the more southern states 303 

Prospects of the ultimate extinction of slavery - 304 



THE SLAVE POWER, 

ITS 

CHARACTER, CAREER, AND DESIGNS 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
THE CASE STATED. 

Those who have followed the discussions in this 
country on the American contest are aware that the 
view taken of that event by the most influential 
organs of the English press has, during the period 
which has elapsed since its commencement, under- 
gone considerable modification. The first announce- 
ment by South Carolina of its intention to secede 
from the Union was received in this country with 
simple incredulity. There were no reasons, it was 
said, for secession. AYhat the constitution and laws 
of the United States had been on the eve of Mr. 
Lincoln's election, that they were on its morrow. 
It was absurd to suppose that one half of a nation 
should separate from the other because a first magis- 
trate had been elected in the ordinary constitutional 
course. The agitation for secession was therefore 



Z CAUSES (»F THi: WAK. 

prniKtuiifcd to lie ;i |M)litic:il Ifiiit iiitciidc'd to cover 
■A roiil movc'iiKiit in some other direction. But 
■wluMi tlie contest liad passed beyond its lirst sta*res, 
wlitn the examj)le set by South Carolina was fol- 
h)wt'd ])v the principal States of the extreme South 
with :i iMitidifv and dcii.-ion shewing evident con- 
.( rt, wlicn till- treacherous seizure of Fort Moultrie 
in Charleston harbour gave further significance to 
the votes of the conventions, when lastly the attack 
on Fort Sumj)ter awoke the North, as one man, to 
arms, belief in the reality of the movement could no 
K>nger be withheld, and speculation was directed to 
the causes of the catastrophe. Tlie theory at first 
l)ropounded was nearly to this efi'ectj Commercial 
and fiscal difierences were said to Ix' at the bottom 
of the movement. Tlie North fancied she had an 
inti-rtst in protection; the South liad an obvious 
interest in free ti'ade. (.)n this and other questions 
of less moment North and South came into collision, 
and the antagonism thus engendered had been 
strengthened and exacerbated by a selfish struggle 
for jdace and power — a struggle which the constitu- 
tion and political usages of the Americans rendered 
more rancorous and \iol(Mit than elscAvlu-re. l'>ut in 
the interests of tlic two sections, considered calmly 
and apart from seliisji ends, there was nothing, it 
was said, which did not admit of easy adjustment, 
nothing which negotiation was not far more eompc- 



THE POrULAR VIEW. 3 

tent to deal with than the sword. As for slavery, it 
was little more than a pretext on both sides, em- 
ployed by the leaders of the South to arouse the 
fears and hopes of the slaveholders, and by the 
North in the hope of attracting the sympathies of 
Europe and hallowing a cause which was essentially 
destitute of noble aims. The civil war was thus 
described as having sprung from narrow and selfish 
views of sectional interests (in which, however, the 
claims of the South were coincident with justice and 
sound policy), and sustained by passions which it- 
self had kindled ; and the combatants were advised 
to compose their differences, and either return to 
their political partnership, or agree to separate and 
learn to live in harmony as independent allies. 

With the progress of events these views have 
undergone some change, principally in excluding 
more completely than at first from the suj)posed 
causes of the naovement the question of slavery, and 
in bringing more prominently into view the right 
of nations to decide on their own form of political 
existence as identified Avith the cause of the South. 
"The watchAvord of the South," said the Times ^^ 
" is Independence, of the North Union, and in these 
two war-cries the real issue is contained." 

That there is much plausibility in this view of the 
American crisis for those who have no more know- 

* September 19, 1861. 



4 THE POPULAR VIEW. 

It t lire of AiiuTifMii liistoi'v tliaii is possessed by the 
bulk ot" eilucated men in this eountry needs not be 
(hiiiid. Superficial appearances, perhaps we should 
say the farts most immediately prominent, give it 
some support. The occasion on \\ hit h secession was 
proclaimed was the election of a Kc publican Presi- 
(hiit, who, fai" from bcin;^ the un(,'om2)r()mising 
cham})ion of abolition, had declared himself ready 
to maintain the existing 7'('</inie of slavery with the 
whole power of the Federal government. (.)n the 
retirement of the Southern representatives and sena- 
tors from Congress, the Republican party became 
supreme in the legislature ; and in what way did 
they employ this suddenly acquired power ? In 
passing a hnv for the abolition of slavery in the 
Union ? or even in repealing the odious Fugitive 
Slave Law ? Nothing of the kind ; but in passing 
the Morrill Tariff — in enacting a measure by which 
they designed to aggrandize the commercial popula- 
tion of the North at the expense of the South. 

Since the breaking out of hostilities, again, some of 
the most .salient acts of the drama have only tended 
to confirm the view which these occurrences would 
suggest. A\'hen slaves have escaped to the Federal 
army, instead of being received by the general with 
open arms as brothers for whose freedom he is 
lighting, they have been placed upon tlie footing of 
property, and declared to be contraband ol' war. 



ITS SUrERFICIALITY. 5 

When a Federalist general, transcending his legiti- 
mate powers, issues a proclamation declaring that 
slaves shall be free, it is not a proclamation of free- 
dom to slaves as such, but only to the slaves of 
" rebels," while no sooner is this half-hearted act of 
manumission known at head-quarters than it is dis- 
avowed and over-ruled. 

All this, and more to the same purpose, may be 
urged, as it has been urged, in favour of the view of 
the American crisis taken by some leading organs of 
the English press ; yet I venture to say that never 
was an historical theory raised on a more fragile 
foundation ; never was an explanation of a political 
catastrophe propounded in more daring defiance of 
all the great and cardinal realities of the case with 
which it professed to deal. 

One is tempted to ask, whether those who thus 
exjDound American politics suppose the present cri- 
sis to be an isolated phenomenon in American his- 
tory, disconnected from all the past ; or, to look at 
the question from another point of view, whether 
they imagine that the coincidence of the political 
division of parties with the geographical division of 
slave and free States is an accident — that, to borrow 
the expression of Jefferson, " a geographical line 
coinciding with a marked principle " has no signifi- 
cance. It seems almost trifling with the reader to 
remind him that the present outbreak is but the 



6 M.AVKKV Tin: CKNTKAL I'KuHLKM 

cruwniii;; result, the iiK'vital)lL- diiiiax of the Avholc 
past history ol" Anu'rican politics — the catastrophe 
foreseen \vith more or less distinctness by all the 
leading statesmen of America i'rom Washington to 
\\'el)ster and ('la\-. ^vhi(•h \vas tiie constant theme 
of their ibrebodings, and to escape or defer -svhich 
was the great problem of their political lives. And 
equally superfluous does it seem to mention what 
was the grand central question in that history — the 
t|Uestion to which all others were subordinate, and 
around which all political divisions ranged them- 
selves.* 

Never surely "was the unity of a national drama 
better preserved. {From the year 1819 down to the 

* In oi»itOjjitiou to the views propoundeil Ijy the modt influential 
organs in England, and in support of what I may venture to call 
the obvious (though httle recognized) account of the war, I am 
glad to be able to quote the high authority of two leading French 
Reviews, the Revue des Deux Mo)i<Jes, and the Jievue Nationuh : — 

'* II fnut aimer a discuter conti-c I'evidence pour se persuader que 
la question de I'esclavage n'est point la cause principale de la crise 
actuelle. Dans ce conllit (jui depuis ti^'ntc ans va toujours en 
s'aggravant et qui vient enlin d'aboutir a la guerre civile, (pielle 
question va toujours i-n grandissiuit et finit par dominer tout le 
reste, sinou cette redoubtable question de Tesclavage ? lis u'ont 
jiaH lu lea discours de Calhoun, de Webster, de Seward, de Dougla.s, 
de Clay, de Sumner, ceux (pii croiont (pie la (piestion de I'esclavage 
n'a dans la politique anioricaine qu'une importance secondaiit;. lis 
oublicnt ([ue toutc la Virginie s'est icvdc en armes contre John 
Brown et scs vingt-cinq compngnons. Voici un fait d'ailleurs : 
quels Hont bellig^rans? D'un cot<5 les (5tats sans csdavcs, de I'autre 



OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 7 

present time the history of the United States has 
been one record of aggressions by the Slave Power, 
feebly, and almost always unsuccessfully, resisted by 
the Northern States, and culminating in the present 
war. At the time of the revolution, as is well known, 
slavery was regarded by all the great founders of 
the Republic, whether Northern or Southern men, 
as essentially an immoral system : it was, indeed, 
recognized by the Constitution, but only as an ex- 
ceptional practice, a local and temporary fact. In 
the unsettled territory then belonging to the Union 
it was by a special ordinance prohibited. Even 
in 1 8 19, although in the interval the Slave Power 
had pushed its dominion and pretensions far beyond 

les etats a esclaves, et Ton pretendrait que la question de Fesclavage 
est ^trang^re a la guerre ! Eutre les (3tats du nord et ceux du sud 
il y a des etats frontieres, les border states, qui, sans etre des etats 
libres, contiennent moins d' esclaves que les ^tats cotonniers. Chose 
etrange ! la fidelity de ces dtats a 1' Union est prdcis^ment en raison 
inverse du nombre de possesseurs d' esclaves; la Virginie, qui a des 
esclaves se rallie au mouvement s^cessioniste ; la partie occidentale 
de cet etat, oasis sans esclaves, s^paree du reste par une chaine des 
Alleghanys, reste fiddle a 1' Union et lui donne des soldats. Le 
nord du Delaware, qui n'a plus d' esclaves, renferme a peine un 
secessioniste ; le sud, qui en a un grand nombre, contient beaucoup 
d'adversaires de I'Union. Le sud et Test du Maryland sont rempHs 
d'esclaves, et en consequence de secessionistes ; I'ouest du Mary- 
land, oil Ton voit tres pen de noirs non aflfranchis, est presque 
unanime pour I'Union. Les six mille esclaves de Baltimore appar- 
tiennent a I'aristocratie de cette \alle, et Ton salt que cetto aris- 
tocratic n'est retenue dans I'obdissance que par des measures de 



SLAVKKV IHK CENTRAL I'HUULEM 

tliL-ir nriLriiial limits, the claim was scarcely advanced 
l«»r slawry tn vnnk as an equal with IVt'c institutions 
in any district where it was nut alivady definitively 
established, and certainly no such claim was acknow- 
led^^ed. Of this the Missouri Compromise affords 
the clearest proof, since, regarded as a triumph 
hy the slaveowners, it only secured the admission 
of slavery tu Missouri on the express condition 
tliat it should be confined fur the future to the 
territory south of a certain parallel of latitude. But 
what has been the career of the Slave Power since 
that time ? It is to be traced through every ques- 
tionable transaction in foreign and domestic politics 
in which the United ^States has since taken part 

nguour. Le Tennessee occidental, abandonnd au tvavail semle, est 
un centre de rdbellion; le Tennessee oriental, oO le travail liLre 
I'emporte de beaucoup, est sympatliique a I'Union. Le Kentucky 
ne fait pas excei.tion a cet regie : dans les comtes du nord et de 
lest, ou U y a peu d'esclaves, il y a peu de sdcessionistes ; dans les 
autres, oO ils sont nombreux, on se prononce i)our la ' neutrality,' 
ce qui n'est (pi'une forme de la tndiison. Dans le Missouri, la ligno 
de ddniarcation est nettement dtablie entre le travaU libre et le 
travail servile. Les Allcmaiuls detcstent I'esclavjige, et forment le 
noyau le j-lus fiddle de I'dtat ; les uniouistes nnglo-saxons sont 
plutAt en favour do la neutrality, tandis que les niaiti-es d'esclaves 
Bont en armcs contro I'Union. II y a quelqucs sympathies pour 
rUnion jusque dans le Texas occident^d, parco qu'on y voit peu 
.I'esclavos et beaucoup d'Alleumnds. Quel e«t V6Uxi sdcessioniste 
I.ar excvllrnce? C'est la Caroline du sud, qui contient i>elativement 
plus d'esclaves quo tons les autres dtata. Dira-t-on encore que le 
ddfcnso de resclavoge n'eat pas la cause dos sdcossiouistes ? S'il 



OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 9 

through the Seminole war, through the annexation 
of Texas, through the Mexican war, through filibus- 
tering expeditions under Walker, through attempts 
upon Cuba, through the Fugitive Slave LaAv of 1850 
tlirough Mr. Clay's compromises, through the repu- 
diation of the Missouri Com2:)romise so soon as the 
full results of that bargain had been reaped, through 
the passing of the Nebraska Bill and the legislative 
establishment of the principle of " Squatter Sove- 
reignty," through the invasion of Kansas, through 
the repudiation of " Squatter Sovereignty " when 
that principle had been found unequal to its pur- 
poses, and lastly, through the Dred-Scott decision 
and the demand for protection of slavery in the Ter- 
ritories — pretensions which, if admitted, would have 

resta des doutes dans qiielques esprits, qu'on ^coiite done le propre 
temoignage des gens du sud." — Revue des Deux Mondes, ire Nov. 
1861. 

In an article by M. Pressense, iu tlie Revue Nationale, the point 
is put with equal perspicuity and force : — " Je sais qu'on s'eflforce 
d'en dissimuler la gravite, et que d'un certain cote on essaye de 
la r^duire a un simple conflit constitutionnel, a una question de 
droit politique, a I'tnterpretation du contrat qui lie entre eux les 
divers Etats de la confederation puissante dont les gigantesques 
progr^s etonnaient nagu^re le nionde. Mais cette explication 
mesquine de la crise actuelle do TAm^rique du Nord n'est qu'un 
sophisme destind a excuser une lachet^. On essaye de donner ainsi 
le change a la conscience publique, qui ne comprendrait pas et ne 
permettrait pas que Ton hesitat en Europe entre le I^ord et le 
Sud, une fois que la question de I'esclavage serait nettetnent posde 
entre eux. Ceux qui trouvent leur interet a incliner vers le Sud se 



lO TlIK COMMERCIAL TIIKOHV. 

coiivri'tcd till' wlmli- I iiioii, tlic Free States no less 
tluiii llif rcrritiirio/mtt) one ^reat dtmiain tor sla\ery, 
Tliis has liccii tlir jtoiiit at wliicli the Slave Power, 
alter a series of successful aggressions, carried on 
during forty years, has at length arrived. It was on 
tliis last demand that the Democrats of the North 
hroke off from their Southern allies — a defection 
whieli gave tlieir victory to the Republicans, and 
directly produced the civil war. And now we are 
asked to believe that slavery has no vital connexion 
witli tliis (piarrel, but that the catastrophe is due to 
quite other causes — to incompatibility of commer- 
cial interests, to uncongeniality of social tastes, to 
a desire for independence, to anything but slavery. 

But we are told that in this Ion"; career of at^- 
gression tlie extension of slavery has oidy been 
employed l)y tlie Soutli as a means to an end, and 
that it is in tliis end we are to look for the key to 
the })resent movement. " Slavery," it seems, "is but 
a surface question in American politics."* Tlie seem- 
ing aggressions were in reality defensive movements 

plai.sont a rabaisser le conllit timdricain a ck-s proportions misd- 
rablfs (jui iiulk-iit la conscience hoi's ile cause ; mais cela est 
nioins facile que cela nc semble commode, ct ils out beau faire, la 
vraie situation se dessine toujour inieux." 

The same view is sustained liy 1^- Comto Agdiior Dc Gasi)ariii 
with remarkable elocpH'iu-t' in lii.s work, ' /'/; Crand I'lUfile qui sv 
/•' /f'jy. ' 

• Saturday liniew, Nov. 9, i8l"i. 



THE COMMERCIAL TIIEOKY. I i 

forced upon the South by the growing preponder- 
ance of the Free States ; and its real object, as well 
in its former career of annexation and conquest, as 
in its present efforts to achieve independence, has 
been constantly the same — to avoid being made the 
victim of Yankee rapacity, to secure for itself the 
development of its own resources unhindered by 
protective laws.* 

Let us briefly examine this theory of the se- 
cession movement. And, first, if free trade be the 
object of the South, why, we may ask, has it not 
employed its power to accomplish this object dur- 
ing its long period of predominance in the Union ? 
It has been powerful enough to pass and repeal 
the Missouri Compromise, to annex Texas, to 
spend 40,000,000 dollars of Federal money in a 
Avar for the recapture of slaves, to pass the Fu- 
gitive Slave Law, to obtain the Dred Scott deci- 
sion : if it has been able to accomplish these results, 
to lead the North into foreign complications in 
which it had no interest, and to force upon it mea- 
sures to which it was strongly averse, is it to be 
supposed that it could not, had it so desired it, have 
carried a free trade tariff? Yet not only has the 
South not attempted this during its long reign, it 
has even co-operated effectively in the passing of 
protective measures — nay, these enthusiastic free 

* Mr. Yancey's letter to the Daily Neivs, January 25, 1862. 



I J TIIK ("OMMEKCIAL THEORY. 

inuU-n* Imvi- not hi-sitateil, when the oi>p(»rtiiiiit\ 
offiTvHl, to jirofit hy j»r(»ttttivc ineasures. ^\ itli tin- 
fxcfption of tlu' Morrill tariff, ('oiijircss never 
{lUjiSiil a more hi;:lily jiroteetive law than the tariff 
of 1S42 ; luul ihih tariff was supported hy a large 
niiiiiher of Southern statesnuii ; and, not oidy so, 
but pkw effective protection to Southern })roducts 
— to the supir «»f L)ui.siana, the lump «>f Kentucky, 
and tlie lead of -Missouri, as well as to tlie manu- 
factures of New Kn;:land. 

A^raiii, if fret' trade he the n;il »il»joct of tlic 
Siuth, how iUtvs U hapj)en that, lia\ing submitted 
to the tariffs of 1832,* 1842, an<l 1846, it should 
have resorted to the extreme measure of secession 
while untler flic tai-ill' of iS^j — a eonij>arativelv 
free-trade law? From 1842 down to i860 the ten- 
dency of Federal legi>lation was distinctly in tlie 
direction of free trade. The most liberal tariff' the 
I'nion ever enjoyed since 18 16 was the tariff of 
1857, and it was while this tariff was in force that 
the plot of .sece.s>i..n was hatched, matured, and 
curried into operation. I'.nt there are some who 

• I Kiy, •• having Huljjnillu«l to tliu tjirillof 1832," because, althougli 
it u truo tliut S**ulh Caroljiitt tlm'at^-iit'd to rise in rebellion ugain.st 
Ihw niriwuns nhv Hloml alone in lier jirojected revolt. Fiir from 
noivinK oiiy Ki-iiorul nyniimthy in the South, it wa.s through the 
iiwtruinentality of a S<.ulh.Tn State (Virginia), enipl..yea by a 
S.uth.-n» l*nMiiI..nl (Jackm.n). that tin- threattue.! movement was 

»U|>|)niMM*4l. 



THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. 1 3 

would have us bc4ieve that it was the Morrill Tariff 
which produced the revolt ; and this is the most 
incomjDrehensil^le portion of the whole case ; since 
there is nothing more certain than that secession 
had been resolved upon, and the plot for its accom- 
plishment traitorously prepared, before the Morrill 
tariff was brought forward, and even before the 
bargain with Pennsylvania was struck, in fulfil- 
ment of which it was introduced. It is indeed well 
known that it was the absence from Congress of 
the Southern senators Avhile carrying out the pro- 
gramme of secession, which alone rendered possible 
the passing of this measure. If free trade were the 
grand object of the South, why did its senators with- 
draw from their posts precisely at the time when their 
presence was most required to secure their cherished 
principle ? Nay, if tliis was their game, why did they 
not apply to Mr. Buchanan to veto the Bill — Mr. 
Buchanan, the creature and humble tool of the Slave 
Party ? AYe are asked by this theory to believe that 
the South has had recourse to civil war, has incurred 
the risk of political annihilation, to accomplish an 
object for the effectual attainment of which its 
ordinary constitutional opportunities afforded ample 
means.* 

* The writer in the Rev^ie des Deux Monchs from whom I have al- 
ready quoted suggests (pp. 156-157) that the conduct of the South- 
ern senators in permitting the passing of the Morrill tariff was 



14 SOUTIIKKX CLAIM OF INDEPENDENCE: 

I'lit rhe (lilliculties oftliis theory do not end here. 
If rlir secession movement be a revolt against pro- 
tective tariffs, ^yhy is it confined to the Southern 
States ? Tlie interest of the Cotton States in free 
exchano-e witli forei-n countries is not more obvious 
than tliat of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 
No class in these States has anything to gain by 
protective measures : nothing is produced in them 
Avhi.l, is endangere.l l.y tlie freest competition with 
the rest of tlie worhl : an artificial enhancement of 
European manufactures is to them as pure an injury 
as it is to South Carolina or Alabama : yet all these 
States are ranged on the side of the Xorth in this 
contest, and resolute for the suppression of the 
revolt. 

It is, however, by the watch word of ' indepen- 
dence,' still more than by that of free trade, that 
the partisans of the South in this country have 
sought to enlist our sympathies in favour of that 
cause. AVe are told of the naturalness, the univer- 
sahty, the strength of the desire for self-government. 

cMibcrately contrived vith a view to make political capital out of 
the M.ntn.u.„t,s winch they calculated on its exciting in England- 
an explanat.c.n which is countenanced by the fact that Mr. Toombs 
representative of Georrria. wlm imw l.^i i . ■ ' 

^f T <r T. . «''^ ^^^'^ "0^^ holds a command m the army 

of Jefferson DavKs, was in the Senate when the Morrill tariff was 
Bubmutc-d to that a.ssembly. and voted f.r the now law. If tlis 

rc.tf!d '"'' """ "" ^''' ""■•^ ^'^^'""^ ^-^"-^^ -"-- 



HOW TO BE ESTIMATED. 



15 



We are reminded of the peculiar power of this 
passion among the Anglo-Saxon race. The act of 
the original thirteen States in severing their con- 
nexion with the mother country is dwelt upon ; and 
we are asked why the South should not also be 
permitted to determine for itself the mode of its 
political existence ? " It threatens none, demands 
nothing, attacks no one, but Avishes to rule itself, 
and desires to be ' let alone :' " why should this 
favour be denied it ? Now let it at once be con- 
ceded that the right to an independent political 
existence is the most sacred right of nations : still 
even this right must justify itself by reference to 
the ends for which it is employed. The demand 
of a robber or murderer for " independence " is 
not a claim which we are accustomed to respect ; 
and it does not appear how our obligations are 
altered if the demand proceed from a robber 
or murderer nation — if national independence be 
sought solely and exclusively as a means of carry- 
ing out designs which are nothing less than robbery 
and murder on a gigantic scale. I am assuming 
that these crimes are involved in the extension 
of slavery, and that the extension of slavery is 
the end for which the Southern Confederacy has 
engaged in the present war. These assumptions 
I hope to make good hereafter ; but meanwhile, 
it may be asked, if the extension of the domain 



1 6 KF.AL CAISK OF SKCESSION. 

dt" slavt'iy l>e not tlic object lor whifli the Soutli 
seeks independence, \vli:it is that ol)ject ? Let those 
wlio have nndertaken the defence of tliat body 
exphiiii to us in wliat way tlie legitimate develop- 
niciit (.f the Soutliern States, within tlieir proper 
limits, was liindered l)y Federal restraints? If they 
had <jrrievances to complain of why did they not let 
the world know them ? AVIiy did they resist all the 
efforts of the Northern States to extract from them a 
categorical statement of what they sought? "That," 
sa3's an al»le wi-itei", " was precisely what it was im- 
l»ossible to obtain from the representatives and sena- 
tors of the extreme South. They steadily refused to 
make known, even under the form of an ultimatum, 
the conditions on which they would consent to 
remain in the Union. Their invariable response 
was ' it was too late; their constituents would acqui- 
esce ill no arrangement."'* Before then we allow 
ourselves to ])e can-ied away l)y the cry of the South 
for independence, it is material to ascertain the pur- 
pose for which independence is desired. It is im- 
portant to distinguish between (to quote the words 
of the eminent man whose name has been prefixed 
to this volume) " the right to rebel in defence of the 
jxnver to tyrannize," and " the right to resist by 
anus a tyranny practised over ourselves." 

The causes and chai-acter of the American contest 

*A7inuaire d^s Deux Momks (i860), p. 618. 



REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION. 



17 



are not for Englishmen questions of merely specula- 
tive interest. On the view which we take of this 
great political crisis will depend, not alone our pre- 
sent attitude towards the contending parties, but in 
no small degree our future relations with a people of 
our o^vn race, religion and tongue, to whom has been 
committed the task, under whatever permanent form 
-of polity, to carry forward in the other hemisphere 
the torch of knowledge and of civilization. We may, 
according as we act from sound knowledge of the real 
issues Avhich are at stake or in ignorance of them, do 
much to promote or to defeat important human in- 
terests bound up with the present contest, and to in- 
crease or to diminish the future influence for good 
of this country. It would indeed be a grievous mis- 
fortune if, in one of the great turning points of hu- 
man history. Great Britain were found to act a part 
unworthy of the position which she occupies and of 
the glorious traditions which she inherits. 

The present essay is intended as a contribution 
towards the diffusion of sound ideas upon this sub- 
ject. The real and sufficient cause of the present 
position of affairs in North America appears to the 
writer to lie in the character of the Slave Power — 
that system of interests, industrial social and political, 
which has for the greater part of half a century 
directed the career of the American Union, and 
which now, embodied in the Southern Confederation, 



1 8 TRIE ORIGIN OF THE WAH 

seeks tul mission a.s an equal nuniher into the commu- 
nity of civilized nations. In the inllowing pages an 
attempt will he made to resolve this system into its 
component elenunts, to trace the connexion of the 
several parts with each other, and of the whole with 
the foundation on which it rests, and to estimate 
p-nerallv the prospects which it holds out to the 
j)eople who compost- it, as well as tiie influence it is 
likelv to exercise on tlie interests of other nations ; 
and, if 1 d«» not greatly mistake the purport of the 
considerations whidi shall he adduced, their effect 
will he to show that this Slave Power constitutes 
the most formidahle antagonist to civilized progress 
which has appeared for many centuries, representing 
a svstem of society at once retro^^rade and afrcressive, 
a system which, containing within it no germs from 
which improvement can spring, gravitates inevitably 
towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies, 
inherent in its position and circumstances, to a con- 
stant extension of its territorial domain. The vast- 
ness of the interests at stake in the American contest, 
regarded under this aspect, appears to me to be very 
inadecpiattly conceived in this country ; and the pur- 
pose of the present work is to bring forward this 
view ot the case more prominently than has yet been 

done. 

I '.lit it is necessary liei'e to guard against a misap- 
prehension. Tlie view that the true cause of the 



OBSCURED BY ITS PROXIMATE OCCASION. 



19 



American contest is to be found in the character and 
nims of the Slave Power, though it connects the 
war ultimately with slavery as its radical cause, 
by no means involves the supiDosition that the mo- 
tive of the North in taking up arms has been the 
abolition of slavery. Such certainly has not been 
its motive, and, if we keep in view its position as 
identified with legal government and constitutional 
rights in the United States, we shall see that this 
motive, even had it existed, could scarcely, at least 
in the outset, have been allowed to operate. Let 
us recall for a moment the mode in which the 
crisis developed itself. It must be remembered — 
what seems now almost to be foro-otten — that the 
war was commenced by the South — commenced for 
no other reason, on no other pretext, than because a 
republican president was elected in the ordinary con- 
stitutional course. If we ask why this was made 
the ground for revolt, I believe the true answer, as I 
have just intimated, is to be found in the aims of the 
Slave Power, — aims which were inconsistent mth its 
remaining in the Union while the Government v/as 
carried on upon the principle of restricting the 
extension of its domain. So long as it was itself 
the dominant party, so long as it could employ 
the powers of the Government in propagating its 
peculiar institution and consolidating its strength, 
so long it was content to remain in the Union ; 



20 TRl'E OlIIGIN OF THE WAR 

liut tV<»iii the moment when, l»y tlic constitutional 
triunipli of til. • Kii)iiMicans, the government passed 
into the hands of a party whose distinctive prin- 
ciple was to im})Ose m limit on the further exten- 
sion of shivery, from th;it moment its continuance 
in tlie I'nion was iiicoiiipatilde with its essential 
objects, and from tliat moment tlie Slave Power 
resolved to hin-ak h)ose iVoiii Inderal ties. The 
war had tlius its ori;j:iii in shiver}' : nevertheless 
the jiroxiiiiate issue with wliieli tlie North had to 
(leal was not slavery, but the ri<^ht of secession. 
For tlie constitution having recognised slavery with- 
in the particular states, so long as the South con- 
fined its proceedings within its own limits, the 
Government which represented the constitution 
could take no cognizance of its acts. The first 
(Icpaiture from constitutional usage by the South 
was the act of secession,* and it w^as on the ques- 

* I am aware tliat tliis h;is been denied hy some English advo- 
rales of the Soutli, in tlicir zeal for the cause more Southern tlvan 
the Southerners ; no less an authority than Mr. Buchanan — though 
not a Soiitherner, the elect of the South — having declared that 
Recc&sion was unconstitutional. It would be foreign to my purpose 
hero to enter into an argument on the constitutional question. I 
will therefore only say that after having carefully studied, so far 
as I know, all that hits been A\Titten on both sides by competent 
jK-rsons, I have been (^uite unalilo to discover juiy other ground on 
which the claim of secession can be j.laced than that ultimate one 
— the right which in the last resort appertains to all people to 
•li'tennine for themselves their own form of government. How 
far the c.is*' of the South will stand the test when tried l>y Ibis 
jiriiifiplc. I li.ivc intiniat^'d my opiiiion in the text. 



OBSCURED BY ITS PROXIMATE OCCASION. 21 

tion, therefore, of the right to adopt this course 
that the North was compelled to join issue. 

The contest thus springing from slavery, and 
involving, as will be shewn, consequences of the 
most momentous kind in connexion with the 
future well-being of the human race in North 
America, wore the apj)earance, to persons regard- 
ing it from the outside, of a struggle upon a point 
of technical construction — a question of law which 
it was sought to decide by an appeal to arms. 
It was not unnatural, then, that the people of this 
country, who had but slight acquaintance with the 
antecedents of the contest or with the facts of the 
case, should wholly misconceive the true nature of 
the issues at stake, and, disconnected as the quarrel 
seemed to have become from the question of slavery, 
should allow their sympathies, Avhich had originally 
gone with the North, to be carried, under the skilful 
management of Southern agency acting through the 
Press of this country,* round to the Southern side. 

* See a very remarkable communication extracted from the Rich- 
mond Inquirer of December 20th, 1861, and publisbed in the Daily 
News of the 17th February, 1862, in which the writer, who had just 
returned to the South from a mission to London, in which he was 
associated with Messrs. Yancey and Mann, describes the state in 
wliich he found EngHsh opinion on American subjects on his arrival 
here in Jvily, 1861, and the influences brought to bear by himself 
and his associates upon the members of the London Press, with a 
view to advancing the Southern cause with the English public. 
The document affords such an insight into tlie causes which have 



22 WAR llli: UM.V ARBITRAMENT. 

Ni'ViTtliclcss, had tlic i-ase of tlic Xortli, regui'ded 
iVfii tVoiii tliis point of view, been fairly put before 
till- l',iiLili>li pe(»[)K', it is diilieult to believe that it 

Ix'i'ii acting uiuni i>uV)li«- opinion in England during tlio last year, 
tljat it may bu Wfli to tjuotc a few extracts. After stating the 
general expectation whirh jnvvailed in the .South when he left it 
in June hust, " that the manufacturing necessities of England and 
France would force tlicm to a speedy recognition and interference 
with the Federal blockade;" and " the equally confident impression 
that the commercial enterprise of England would spring at once to 
the enjoyment of the high prices the blockade established, by send- 
ing forward cargoes of arms, ammunition, medicines, and other 
stores most needed in the Confederacy ;" and after describing the 
causes in the public opinion of England which prevented these 
hopes being realized, the writer proceeds as follows : — " I have thus 
endeavoured, in this most hurried and imperfect manner, to sketch 
some of the dilhculties Avliich met our commissioners on the very 
threshold of their mission. That they have addressed themselves 
to these difficulties with zeal and efficiency will not be doubted by 
the millions in the South to whom their abilities and character are 
o-s familiar as household words. During my stay in London I was 
I'lx'quently at the rooms of Colonel M — , and can thus bear personal 
testimony to his zeal and efficiency. He seemed to appreciate the 
necessity of educatuig the English mind to the proper view of the 
various difficulties in the way of his progress; and, Avith but limited 
means of eflV-cting his objects, he worked with untiring industry for 
their accomplislmient ; and, as I have also ^\Titten, a distinguished 
member of Congi-css is, I bcUeve, doing all that talent, energy, and 
a i)eculiar fitness for his position can accomplish. Without any 
other ai«l than his intimate knowledge of English character, and 
that careful style of procedui-e which his thorough training as a 
diplomatist has given him, he has managed to make the acquaint- 
iuice of most of the distinguished representatives of the London 
i'resh, who.se powerful batteries thus influenced are brought to bear 



WAR THE ONLY ARBITRAMENT. 23 

would not have been recognized as founded, at 
least in its first phase, in reason and justice. 
When the South forced on a contest by attacking 

upon tlie American question. This of course involves an immense 
labour, whicli he stands up to unflincliingly. So much for his zeal. 
His efaciency, with that of his colleague, is manifested in the recog- 
nition of our rights as a belligerent, and in the wonderful revolution 
in the tone of the EngUsh Press. . . . The influence of this 
lever upon pubHc opinion was manifest during my stay in Paris. 
When I first went there, there was not a single paper to speak out 
in our behalf. In a few days, however, three brochures were issued 
which seemed to take the Parisian Press by storm. One of them 
was the able and important letter of the Hon. T. Butler King to 
the I^Iinister; another, 'The American Kevolution Unveiled,' by 
Judge Pequet, formerly of New Orleans— whose charming and ac- 
compUshed lady, by the way, is a native of Eichmond ; and a third, 
' The American Question,' by Ernest Bellot des Miniferes, the agent 
of the French purchasers of the Virginia canals. These works each 
in turn created a great deal of attention, and their united effect 
upon the French mind shows the effective character of this appli- 
ance. Messrs. Bellot and Pequet deserve well of the Confederacy 
for their powerful and voluntary advocacy. I can, and with great 
pleasure do, bear testimony to the valuable and persevering efforts 
of Mr. King both in Paris and London. Among the first acquaint- 
ances I had the pleasure of making wliile in London was ^Ir. 
Gregory, M. P., to whom I carried letters of introduction from a 
Vir-inia gentleman long resident in Paris, who very kindly either 
inti'oduced or pointed out to me the distinguished members of 
parliament. He had been, I found, a traveller in Virginia, and 
inquired after several persons, among whom was Mr. John B. 
Eutherford, of Goochland. During an hour's walk upon the pro- 
menade between the new parliament houses and the Thames, he 
plied me with questions as to the 'situation' in the Confederacy, 
and seemed greatly encouraged by my replies ; more so, he said, 
than at any tiuip since the revolution commenced." 



-4 VI i:\vs (IF Tin-: Noirni 



the l-'cdiTal torts, wliat was Mr. LiiR-oln to do? 
I'>i.turc aequiescin<j: in its demand for separation, 
was Ik- nut at least hnnnd to aseertain that that 
demand represented the real ^vish of the Southern 
I'cople? luit, after war had been proclaimed, or 
rather commenced, by the South, how was this to 
!>(• done otherwise than by accepting the challenoe ? 
Was the Government at once to lower the standard 
of law before that of revolution, without even 
mquirin<r l)y whom the revolution was supported ? 
Init in tiuth the President's case was much stronger 
than tliis. The Government was in possession of 
evidence which at least rendered it very probable 
tliat at this time the separatists were in a minority 
ni tlie South, even in those places where they 
were believed to be strongest. At the presidential 
elertiun which had just been held, the votes for 
the unionist candidates in the states of the extreme 
south exceeded those for the candidate wdio repre- 
sented the secession ; in the intermediate states, 
the niiionist votes formed two-thirds of the consti- 
tiKiicy ; in Missouri, three-fourths.* Will it be 

* See Annuaire des Deux Afondes, i860, p. 608 ; also the extract 
from the Commonm<il(h of Frankfort (Kentucky), p. 606, and that 
from the Cliarlestown Mtrcury, p. 609, from whidi it appears that 
on tlie eve of the presidential election, some of the leading journals 
of the Soutli regarded the secession movement as the work of a 
l>o.ly (,f noisy demagogues, whose views found no response among 
the majority of the people. 



THE UNIONIST SENTIMENT. 25 

said that, with such facts before him, which 
were surely a safer criterion of Southern feel- 
ing than the votes of conventions obtained 
under mob-terrorism, Mr. Lincoln should at once 
have acquiesced in the demand for secession, and 
quietly permitted the consummation of a con- 
spiracy, which for deliberate treachery, betrayal 
of sacred trusts, and shameless and gigantic fraud, 
has seldom been matched? To have done so, 
would have been to have written himself down 
before the world as incompetent— nay, as a traitor 
to the cause which he had just sworn to defend. 

The right of secession became thus by force of 
circumstances the ostensible ground of the war ; and 
with the bulk of the Northern people it must be 
admitted it was not only the ostensible but the real 
ground; for it is idle to claim for the North a 
hio-her or more generous principle of conduct than 
that which itself put forward. The one prevailing 
and overpowering sentiment in the North, so soon 
as the designs of the South were definitively dis- 
closed, was undoubtedly the determination to 
uphold the Union, and to crush the traitors who 
had conspired to dissolve it. In this country we 
had looked for something higher ; we had ex- 
pected, whether reasonably or not, an anti-slavery 
crusade. AYe were disappointed ; and the result 
was, as has been stated, a re-action of sentiment 



26 VIKWS l)K THK NORTH : 

whicli has provcntcMl us Iroin doing justice to that 
wliicli was ivalh- woi-tliy of achniration in tlie* 
NtU'therii cause. I sav ^\•(H•tll^■ ol" athairation ; tor 
(he spectacle which the North presented at tlie 
opciiiiiL'' <)t thf war was sucli as I tliiiik iiiiglit well 
iiave called fortli this feeling. It was the spectacle 
nf a peoph', >vl»ich, having long bent its neck before a 
band of selfish politicians, and been dragged by them 
throu<rh the mire of shameless transactions, had 
suddenly recoveretl the consciousness of its power 
ami responsibilities, and, shaking itself fi'ee from 
tiu'ir spell, stood erect before the men who had 
enthralled its conscience and its will. A com- 
nnmity, the most eager in the world in the chase 
after gain, forgot its absorbing pursuit; parties, 
a moment before arrayed against each other in a 
great political contest, laid aside their party ditt'er- 
ences ; a whole nation, merging all private aims in 
the single passion of patriotism, rose to arms as a 
single man : and tJiis foi- no selfish object, but to 
maintain ihf integi'ity of their common country and 
to chastise a band of consi)irators, who, in the wan- 
tonness of their audacity, had dared to attack it. 
I he Northern people, conscious that it had risen 
above the level of ordinary motives, h)oked abroad 
for sympathy, and es])ecially looked to England. It 
was answci'ed with coM ••ritici'^ni and dri'ision. The 
I'esponse was ]tcrhap> natui'al un<Kr the circum- 



THE ANTI- SLAVERY SENTIMENT. 27 

stances, but undoubtedly not more so than the bitter 
mortification and resentment which that response 
evoked. 

The prevailing idea that inspired the Northern 
rising was, I have said, the determination to uphold 
the Union. Still it would be a great mistake to 
suppose that this idea represented the whole signifi- 
cance of the movement, even so far as this Avas to 
be gathered from the views of the North. While 
loyalty to the Union pervaded and held together all 
classes, another sentiment — the sentiment of hostility 
to slavery — though less widely diffused, was strongly 
entertained by a considerable party, and came more 
directly into collision than the unionist feeling 
Avith the real aims of the seceders. " The abolition- 
ists," conventionally so known, formed indeed a 
small band. They had hitherto advocated separa- 
tion as a means of escape from connexion with 
slavery, but they now threw themselves w^ith ardour 
into the war ; not that they swerved from their 
original aim, but that they believed they saw in the 
war the most effectual means of advancing that aim 
by breaking with slavery for ever ; because with 
true instinct they felt that, secession having been 
undertaken for the purpose of extending slavery, 
the most effectual means to defeat that purpose was 
to defeat secession. The anti-slavery feeling, how- 
ever, prevails far beyond the bounds of the party 



28 



KAl'll) fii;()\VTII OF THE 



kiK.wii :is •* alxditionists." Outside tliis sect are a 
Iiiri:(' numlur nt' abk- imii, iiicludiiig such iiuines as 
Horace Orccly, Suiuner, Giddiiigs, Hale, Olmsted, 
\\cst.)ii, Lono;fello^\•, Bryant, Fremont, men who, 
while relusiiii: to |)ronounce the shibboleth of the • 
aljuhtionists, share in a large degree their views. 
I lie effect of the war has been, as might have been 
supposed, to bring this class of politicians into closer 
union than before with the extreme sect. The two 
have now begun to act habitually together, and 
for i)i-aetieal purposes may be regarded as constitut- 
ing a single party. Now it is these men, and not the 
mere unionists, whose opinions form the natural 
antithesis to the aims of the seceders. Between 
these and the South there can be no compromise ; 
and, conformably to the laAv which invariably 
governs revolutions, they are the party who are 
rai>idly becoming predominant in the Xorth. The 
aiiti-sla\er)- feeling is already rapidly gaining on 
the mere unionist feeling, and bids fair ulti- 
mately to supersede it. In the anti-slavery ranks 
are now to be found men who but a year a^-o 
Nvere staunch supporters of slavery. Anti-slavery 
orators are now cheered to the echo by multi- 
tudes who but a year ago hooted and pelted them : 
they liave forced their way into the stronghold 
«»f tlieir enemies, and William IJoyd Garrison 
Icctiin^ ill \,.w York itsell' with enthusiastic ap. 



ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT, 



29 



plause. The anti-slavery principle thus tends con- 
stantly, under the influences which are in operation, 
to become more powerful in the Xorth ;* and it is 
this fact which justifies the view of those who have 
predicted that it is only necessary the war should 
continue long enough in order that it be converted 
into a purely abolition struggle. 

These considerations will enable the reader to 
perceive how, while the North has arisen to up- 
hold the Union in its integrity, slavery is yet the 
true cause of the war, and that the real significance 
of the war is its relation to slavery. I think, too, 
they must be held to afford a complete justifica- 
tion of the North in its original determination to 
maintain the Union ; but this is scarcely now the 
practical question. There was, at the first, reason to 
believe that a very considerable element of popula- 
tion favourable to the Union existed in the South. 
While this was the case, it was no less than the duty 
of the Federal government to rescue these citizens 
from the tyranny of a rebel oligarchy. But do 

* While these sheets are passing through the press, the intelli- 
gence has arrived of Mr. Lincoln's proposal for an accommodation 
with the Secessionists on the terms of co-operating A\'ith any state, 
disposed to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation by means of 
pecimiary assistance to be provided from the Federal revenues. 
The writer could scarcely have anticipated so early and so remark- 
able a confirmation of the views expressed in the text. 



3© I'HESKXT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. 

^q'oiinds lor tlwit supposition >till exist? Before the 
WAV broke our, it is \\v\\ known that something like 
ii reiirn of terror prevaiKd in tlie South lor all who 
lell .•short of the most extrenu' standard of })ro- 
shiNcrv opinion. The rigour of that reign "will 
hardl\- have l»een relaxed since the war commenced, 
and niu>t no douht have produced a very consider- 
able emigration ol" lo\al citizens. The infectious 
enthusiasm of the war will pi-ohahK' ha^•e operated 
to make man\' converts ; and, iiiidci- the influences 
of hoth these causes, the South, or at least that por- 
tion ol" the South which has led the Avay in this 
movement, has probably by this time been brought 
to a substantial unanimity of opinion, a conclusion 
which is strongly conlirmed by the absence of any 
siirn of disaffection to the Confederation among; its 
population.* Under these circumstances what is the 
policy to wliirli l".uro])c, in the interests ofci\iliza- 
tion, shouhl give its moral support ? This country 
has long made u\) its mind as to the impossibility 
of forcildy reconstructing the Union ; perhaps it 
has also satisfied itself of the undesirableness of 
this residt. Of neither of these opinions is the 
writer prej)ared to contest the soundness. But this 

• Sinco the above passaj^c wiis ■written some unionist ilonionstra- 
tions in the iJorder states lulldwing on the success of the Korthern 
armies, Imve shewn that the unanimity is not as complete as the 
writer imagined : still he does not conceivo that what lias occuiTcd 
i« at all .mI.iiI it'll to afl'ect the general scope of his ix'asoning. 



PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. 31 

l)emg conceded, an all-important question remains 
for decision. On what conditions is the independ- 
ence of the South to be established ? For the 
solution of this question in the interests of civil- 
ization, a knowledge of the character and designs 
of the power which represents the South is re- 
quisite, and it is this which it is the aim of the pre- 
sent work to furnish. IMeanwhile, however, it may 
be said that the definitive severance of the Union is 
perfectly compatible with either the accomplishment 
of the original design of the seceders — the exten- 
sion of slavery, or the utter defeat of that design, 
according to the terms on which the separation 
takes place ; and that therefore the severance of the 
Union by no means implies the defeat of the North 
or the triumph of the South. The Southern leaders 
may be assumed to know their own objects, and to 
be the best judges of the means which are neces- 
sary to their accomplishment; and Ave may be cer- 
tain that no arrangement which involves the frus- 
tration of these objects will be acquiesced in until 
after a complete prostration of their strength. If 
this be so, it is important to ascertain what the ob- 
jects of the South are. For if these objects be in- 
consistent Avith the interests of civilization and the 
happiness of the human race (and I shall endeavour 
to show that this is the case), then no settlement of 
the American dispute which is not preceded by a 



32 TRESEXT ASPECT OF THK QUESTION. 

tl»oroii<j:li ImmMiii;,' <»f tin- >liiv(' pai-ty sliould he 
satist'ac*tt)r\' to tliosc who \i-A\v Imiiiaii iutorcsts at 
liciirt. Tliis is the cardinal ]»oiiit ol'the wliok' ques- 
fit»ii. riic (k'si^nis of the secedcrs arc cithir legiti- 
mate and consistent with human interests, or the 
contrary. If tliey are legitimate, let this be shown, 
and h't us in this ca.se wi.sli tliem (iod speed: if tliey 
are not, and if the Southern leaders may l)e taken 
to know what is essential to their own ends, then we 
may he sure that nothing short of the effectual 
delrat of the Soutli in the present war will secure 
a settlement which >hall he consistent with what 
the hest interests of mankind require. 



33 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY. 

Before proceeding to an examination of the social 
and political system which has been reared upon the 
basis of slavery in North America, it will be desira- 
ble to devote some consideration to the institution 
itself in its industrial aspects. The political tenden- 
cies of the Slave Powder, as will hereafter be seen, 
are determined in a principal degree by the econo- 
mic necessities under which it is placed by its fun- 
damental institution ; and in order, therefore, to 
appreciate the nature of those tendencies, a determi- 
nation of the conditions requisite for the success of 
slavery, as an industrial system, becomes indispen- 
sable. 

The form in which it will be most convenient to 
discuss this question will be in connexion with the 
actual position of slavery in the American continent. 
As is well known, the system formed originally a 
common feature in all the Anglo-Saxon settlements 
in that part of the world, existing in the northern 
no less than the southern colonies, in New England 
no less than in Virginia. But before much time 
had elapsed from their original foundation, it be- 

3 



34 DIFFERENT FORTUNES OF SLAVERY 

came evuK'Ut that it was (kstiiicd to occupy very 
diffiTcnt positions amoiijr these ri>iM^- coiiiiiuinities. 
In tlu' cuhmies imrtli of hrlawari- ^»a^■ shiver\' rapid- 
1\" irll iiit<t a Milioi-tliiiatc plate, and ;:ra(liiall\' died 
out; wliilc ill those soutli <>t that inlt-t its |)hu'e in 
tl»e industrial system became constantly more pro- 
minent, until ultimately it has risen to a ])osition 
of j)aram()unt im[)()rtance in that rerri'^'U. ovcr|)o\ver- 
ing every rival influence, and UKiuldin^jf all the phe- 
nomena ol" till' social state into conformity with its 
refpureinent<. The j)rohlrni, then, which I i)r()pose 
to considi-r is the cause of thi> difference in the 
fortunes of slavery in these diltcrent portions of 
American soil. 

Several theories have been advanced in explana- 
tion of the phenomenon. ( )ne of these attributes it 
to diversity of character in the original founders of 
the communities in question ;* for, tliouirh j)roceed- 
ini: from the same country and belon<:;ing to the 
same race, the Ann:lo-Saxon eini<rrations to North 
America, accordin^^ as they were directed to the 
north or south of that continent, wci-c in the main 
drawn from ditlerent classes of the mother nation. 
Ma«achusetts and the other New l^nuland States 

• Seo Stirling's Ixttfrit from (he Slm>« S(aU.«, \\ 64, whoro 
prontcT inip<)rtuiu-o i.^ attri}>utc«l to this circunistaiico tlian it appoars 
to m<' to flosorvft ; and conipnri* ( )lmstvii'8 Sfa Boanl S(<it,.<!^ pp. 
181-18^, 220, 221. 



IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 35 

were colonized principally from the elite of the mid- 
dle and lower classes — by people who, being accus- 
tomed to labour with their own hands, would feel 
less the need of slaves ; and who, moreover, owing 
to their political views, having little to hope for in 
the way of assistance from the country they had 
quitted, would have little choice but to trust to their 
personal exertions. On the other hand, the early 
emigration to Virginia, j\Iaryland, and the Carolina^ 
was for the most part composed of the sons of the 
gentry, whose ideas and habits but ill fitted them 
for a struggle wdth nature in the wilderness. Such 
emigrants had little disposition to engage personally 
in the work of clearance and production : nor were 
they under the same necessity for this as their 
brethren in the North ; for, being composed in great 
part of cavaliers . and loyalists, they were, for many 
years after the first establishment of the settlements, 
sustained and petted by the home government ; being 
furnished not merely with capital in the shape of 
constant supplies of provisions and clothing, but 
with labourers in the shape of convicts, indented 
servants, and slaves. In this way the colonists of 
the Virginian group w^ere relieved from the necessity 
of personal toil, and in this way, it is said, slavery, 
which found little footing in the North, and never 
took firm root there, became established in the 
Southern States. 



36 THEORY OF DIVERSE ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDERS. 

Tliis exi)lanation, however, carries us but a short 
w:iv towards tlie point we have in view. It cxpkiiiis 
the more rapid extension of shivery in eai'ly times 
in tlif eoh)nies whicli were in tlieir origin most pa- 
tronized hy the home government, l)ut it does not 
explain whv shiverv. wliieli had, tliough not exten- 
sivi-ly, heen introdueetl into tlie Northern colonies, 
should not have sub.setpuiitK- increased; much less 
does it allni-tl an\- explanation of its idtiniate ex- 
tinction in the Xni-th. It is certain the New Kng- 
landers were not withheld iVom employing slaves hy 
moral scruples, and, if the system had been found 
suitable to the ivquiremeuts of the country, it is to 
be presumed that they -would have gradually ex- 
tended its basis, and that, like their neighbours, 
especially since the treaty of L'trecht had secured 
for llnglish enterprise the African slave-trade, they 
would havi' availed themselves of this means of re- 
cruiting tlieir laboiu' market. 

Another and more geuerallv accepted solution 
refers the phenomenon in (piestion to the influence 
of climate jind tlie character of the negro raie. The 
European constitution, we are told, cannot endure a 
climate in which the negro can toil, thrive, and mul- 
tijily, and the indolence of the negro is such that he 
will only work under compulsion. If it were not, 
therefore, for negro sl:i\»i-\-, the world mn>t have 
gone witliout those cojnniodities which :ire the ]»ecu- 



THEORY OF CLIMATE AND KACE. 37 

liar product of tropical climes. Mankind, in effect, 
says this theory, has had to choose between main- 
taining slavery and abandoning the use of cotton, 
tobacco, and sugar, and the instincts of humanity 
have succiunbed before the more powerful induce- 
ments of suljstantial gain. 

It would, perhaps, be too much to say that this 
view of the causes which have maintained slavery in 
the Southern districts of North America is absolutely 
destitute of foundation, but there can be no hesita- 
tion in saying that, as a theory, it utterly fails to 
account for the facts which it is sought to explain. 
The climate of the oldest of the Slave States — Virgi- 
nia, Maryland, Delaware, North and South Carolina 
— is remarkably genial and perfectly suited to the 
industry of Europeans ;* and, though the same is 
not true in the same degree of the Gulf States, yet 
it is a fact that these regions also afford examples of 
free European communities increasing in numbers 
under a semi-tropical climate, and rising to opu- 
lence through the labour of their own hands. In 
Texas a flourishing colony of free Germans, among 
whom no slave is to be found, engage in all the oc- 
cupations of tlie country, and are only prevented 
Dy their distance from the great navigable rivers, 
and the want of other means of communication, 

* Olmsted's Slave States, pp. 1,31, 462-3. 



38 THEUHY OF CLIMATE AND RACE. 

troiii ii|»itlvin;r tlifinsLlvcs extensively to that very 
cultivation — the j^rowinir of cotton — Nvhich the com. 
plaeent rcasoners whose theory Ave are considering 
hoose to reiraril as tlie ordained I'unetion of the 
lU'LTo race.* 

" If we look." sa\s Mi-. AVeston, "to the origin of 
the Eur()[)can races which inhabit this country, 
Cieorgia and Alabama and Tennessee are more like 
their mother countries than New England is. The 
Irisinnan and Knglishman and Cierman find in Mis- 
souri and Texas a climate less dissimilar to that at 
home, than they do in Wisconsin and Minnesota. 
The heats of summer are longer and steadier at the 
South, but not more excessive tlian at the North. 
r.abi»ur in the fields is performed b\- whites, and 
without any ill consequences in the extreme South. 
Nearly all the heavy out-door work in the city of 

• " The Southern parts of the Union," says De Tocqueville, " are 
not liottcr than the suuth of Italy and of Spain ; auel it may be 
asked why tlie Eurt>pcan cannot work as well tliere as in the two 
latter countriea If slaver}' has been abolished in Italy and in 
S|»ain without causing the destruction of the masters, why should 
not the same thing take \)\acv in the Union? I cannot believe 
tliat Nature has prohibit«d the Europeans in Georgia and the 
Floritlas, under jiain of death, from raising the means of subsistence 
from the soil ; but their labour would unquestionably be more irk- 
•me and less productive to them than that of tlie iidiabitants of 
New England. As the free workman thus loses a portion of his 
MUjK'rinrity over the slave in the Southern States, there are fewer 
inducements tn abolish slaverv." 



ITS INADEQUACY. 39 

New Orleans is performed by whites. . . . The 
pructical experience of mankind is a sufficient answer 
to fanciful rules, which, applied on the other side of 
the Atlantic, would surrender to the African, Spain, 
France, and Itah', and drive back their present in- 
liabitants to the shores of the Baltic. The three 
thousand years of recorded civilization in the regions 
Avliich environ the Mediterranean on all its sides, 
prove that no part of the continental borders of the 
Gulf of Mexico, and none of the islands which sepa- 
rate it from the ocean, need be abandoned to the 
barbarism of negro slavery. The European stock is 
found everywhere, from Texas to Patagonia, and in 
every part of that whole extent is more vigorous 
and prolific than any other race, indigenous or im- 
ported. Isothermal lines are not uniform with 
parallels of latitude ; vertical suns are qualified by 
ocean breezes and mountain heights ; and America, 
even at the equator, ofi*ers to man salubrious 

abodes."* 

But still more fatally does the theory halt upon 
the other limb of the argument— the incorrigible 
indolence of the negro. AYhatever plausibility there 
may have been in this oft repeated assertion in times 
when the negro was only known as a slave or as a 
pariah in a land where his existence was scarcely 
tolerated, it is perfectly futile to advance such state- 

* Pror/ress of Slavery, \^\\ 1*^0, 161. 



40 ALl.LGKD INDOLENCE OF THE NEGRO. 

iiK'iits now in the face of the facts which recent 
oliscrvations liave revealed to us. " We. in the 
l'nit««l States," says Mr. Sewell, " luive lieard of 
al)aiKlone(l properties in the West Indies, and, Avith- 
out niiuh investigation, liave listened to the planters' 
excusr — thi- indolence of the negro, who refuses to 
work except under compulsion. But I shall be able 
to show that, in those colonies wliere estates have 
been abandoned, the labouring classes, instead of 
passing from servitude to indolence and idleness, 
h:i\(' >rt Up for themselves, and tliat small proprie- 
tors since emancipation have increased a liundred 
f<dd." . . . . " It is a fiict which speaks volumes 
that, within the last fifteen years, in spite of the 
extraordinary price of land and the low rate of 
wages, the small proprietors of Barbadoes holding 
less than five acres have increased from uoo to 
y:>?>l- '^ iF^(^^ majority of these proprietors were 
forrnerhj slares, subsequently free labourers, and 
finalhj landholders. Tliis is certainly an evidence of 
industrious habits, and a remarkable contradiction 
to the prevailing idea that the negro Avill work only 
under compulsion. That idea was formed and fos- 
tered from the liabits of the n(>gro as a slave • his 
habits as a iVeeman, (kvel()i)e(l under a wliolesome 
stimulus ami settled l)y time, ai-e in strikint*- contrast 
to his h:ibits as a slave. I am simplv stating a truth 
in regard to ilie liarl.adian creole. wliieh liere, at 



GROUNDLESSNESS OE THE CHARGE. 4I 

least, will not be denied. I have conversed on the 
subject with all classes and conditions of people, and 
none are more ready to admit than the planters 
themselves, that the free labourer in Barbadoes is a 
better, more cheerful, and more industrious w^ork- 
man than the slave ever was under a system of com- 
pulsion." And, again, of an island very differently 
circumstanced from Barbadoes the same author 
writes : — " I have taken some pains to trace the 
Creole labourers of Trinidad from the time of eman- 
cipation, after they left the estates and dispersed, 
to the present day ; and the great majority of them 
can, I think, be followed, step by step, not down- 
ward in the path of idleness and poverty, but up- 
ward in the scale of civilization to positions of 
greater independence."* This testimony of a per- 
fectly unimpassioned witness, coming after ten years' 
further experience in corroboration of the evi- 
dence given by Mr. Bigelow in 1850, ought to set 
this question at rest. There is not a tittle of 
evidence to show that the aversion of the negro 
to labour is naturally stronger than that of any 
other branch of the human family. So long as he 
is compelled to work for the exclusive benefit of a 
master, he will be inclined to evade his task by 

* Sewell's Ordeal of Free Labour in the West Indies, pp. 34-35, 
39-40. And for evidence to tlie same etfect respecting the Jamai- 
can negroes, see post, pp. 198, 202, &c. 



41 TRIE SOLUTION UF THE TUOBLEM ECONOMIC. 

fVtTV iiU'Miis ill liis j)()\V(.'r, a.-^ the -wliitc iiiaii Avoiild 
do iiii«K'r similar circimistanccs ; but cinaiicipate 
liiiii. and subject liiiii to tlit- same motives Avhieli 
aet llpoli the iVee white hdxtUl'el". and tlierc is lio 
reason to hi-licve he Asill not he led to exert himself 
with equal eiier;j:\'.* 

A eireiimstance more inllueiitial in determining 
the history of slave i-y in America than either origin 
or climate is pointed at hy He ToC(|Ucville in his 
remark, that the soil of New Kngland '' was entirely 
ol)}tosed to a teri'ifurial aristoeraey." '* To bring 
that refractory land into cultivation, the constant 
and interested exertions of the owner himself Avere 
necessary; and, when the ground was prepared, its 
]>roducc was found to be insufficient to enrich a 

* " Consiik'rons," says M. Dc Gaspariii, " ces jolies cliaumieres, 
CCS mobiliers proprcs et presque elegants, ces jardins, cet air gene- 
ral de Lien-6tre et de civilisation; interrogeons ces noifs dont I'as- 
pect physique s'est dejii niodilici sous I'influence de la libertt^, ces 
noirs dont le nonibre decroissait rapidement a r^pocjue de lescla- 
vage et commence au contraire a s'accroitre depuis I'alfranchisse- 
ment ; ils nous parleront de leur bonhour. Les uns sont devenus 
prupriet^iircs et travaillent pour leur propro compte (ce n'est pas uu 
crinie, jimagine), les autres s'associent pour affcrmer de grandes 
plantations ou portent i>ent-etre aux usines d(>s rithe.s planteurs les 
Cannes recoltdes chez eux ; cpux-ci sont marcliands, beaucoup louent 
Icurs bras commo cultivateurs. Quels que soient les torts dun 
certain ni'iiibrc d'iiidividus, rcnsciuble des n^gres libres a mdritd ce 
ti.'ni(»igiiage rendu en 1S57 ]'ar Ic gouvcrnour de Tabago : ' Je nie 
«jue nos noirs de la canipagne aient des habitudes dc paresse. 11 
n'existe jias dans le monde une classe aussi industrieuse.' '" — I'n 
(hiinil J''iip/r, p. 312. 



TRUE SOLUTION OF THE TROBLEM — ECONOMIC. 43 

master and a fanner at the same time. The land 
was then naturally broken up into small portions 
which the proprietor cultivated for himself." Such a 
country, for reasons which will presently be more 
fully indicated, was entirely unsuitcd to cultivation 
by slave labour ; but what I Avish here to remark is, 
that this fact, important as it is with reference to 
our subject, is yet insufficient in itself to afford the 
solution wliich we seek ; for, though it would ac- 
count for the disappearance of slavery from the New 
England States, it fails entirely when applied to the 
country west and south of the Hudson, which is 
for the most part exceedingly fertile, but in which, 
nevertheless, slavery, though extensively introduced, 
has not been able to maintain itself. To understand, 
therefore, the conditions on wdiich the success of a 
slave regime depends, we must advert to other con- 
siderations than any which have yet been adduced. 

The true causes of the phenomenon will appear if 
we reflect on the characteristic advanta^-es and dis- 
advantages which attach respectively to slavery and 
free labour, as productive instruments, in connex- 
ion Avith the external conditions under wdiich these 
forms of industry came into competition in North 
America. 

The economic advantages of slavery are easily 
stated : they are all comprised in the fact that the 
employer of slaves has absolute power over his 



44 MERITS AND DEFECTS UF SLAVE LABOUR. 

workim-n, and enjoys the disposal of the whole fruit 
of their lahours. Slave labour, therefore, admits of 
the most eomplcte organization, that is to say, it 
may he eomhim-d on an extensive scale, and directed 
by a controlling mind to a single end, and its c(^st 
can never rise above that which is necessary to 
maintain the slave in health and strength. 

< Ml the other hand, the economical defects of slave 
labour are very serious. They may be summed up 
under the three following heads: — it is given reluc- 
tantly; it is unskilful ; it is wanting in versatility. 

It is given reluctantly, and consequently the 
industry of the slave can only be depended on so 
long as he is watched. The moment the master's 
eye is withdrawn, the slave relaxes his efforts. The 
cost of slave labour will therefore, in great measure 
depend on the degree in which the work to be 
perlornied admits of the workmen being employed 
in (lose ))i-o\iiniry to each other. If the work be 
such that a large gang can be employed Mith 
efliciency within a small space, and be thus brouo-ht 
under the eye of a single overseer, the expense of 
superintendence will be slight ; if, on the other 
hand, the nature of the work recpiires that the 
workmen should be dispersed t)ver an extended 
ai-ea, tiie number of overseers, and therefore, the 
cost of the labour wliieli i-erjuires this supervision 
"'" '"' |'i-<»i»ortionately increased. The cost of 



MERITS AND DEFECTS OF SLAVE LABOUR. 45 

slave-labour thus varies directly with the degree in 
which the work to ])e done requires dispersion of 
the labourers, and inversely as it admits of their con- 
centration. Further, the Avork being performed 
reluctantly, fear is substituted for hope, as the 
stimulus to exertion. But fear is ill calculated to 
draw from a labourer all the industry of which 
he is capable. " Fear," says Bentham, " leads the 
labourer to hide his powers, rather than to show 
them ; to remain below, rather than to surpass him- 
self." " By displaying superior capacity, the 

slave would only raise the measure of his ordinary 
duties ; by a work of supererogation he W'Ould only 
prepare punishment for himself." He therefore 
seeks, by concealing his powers, to reduce to the 
lowest the standard of requisition. " His ambition 
is the reverse of that of the freeman ; he seeks to de- 
scend in the scale of industry, rather than to ascend." 
"^ 'Secondly, slave labour is unskilful, and this, not 
only because the slave, having no interest in his 
work, has no inducement to exert his higher 
faculties, but because, from the ignorance to wdiich 
he is of necessity condemned, he is incapable of 
doing so. In the Slave States of North America, 
the education of slaves, even in the most rudimen- 
tary form, isproscribed by law, and consequently 
their intelligence is kept uniformly and constantly 
at the very lowest point. " You can make a nigger 



46 MKUITS AND DEFFXTS OF FRFE LABOUR. 

work," said an interlocutor in one (.tf ^fr. Olmsted's 
dialojTiies, " l)ut veil cannot make him think." He 
is thiTC'foro nn>nitcd loc all hj-ancln-s oi" industry 
Avhich i\(iuiiT the sli<rhest care, lorethouglit, or 
(le\tti-ir\ . He cannot he made to co-operate with 
maciniiei-v ; he can onl\' l)e trusted with the 
coarsest inijdenu'iits ; he is incapahle of all l)ut the 
rudest forms of lahour.* 
^ l>ut further, slave lahour is eminently defective 
in }»oint of versatility. The dilticulty of teaching 
tlie slave aii\ ihiuLf is S(j urcat, that the only chance 
of turninLi" his lalionr to profit is, -when he has once 
learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. 
A^'here slaves, therefore, are employed there can be 
no varietv of production. Tf tobacco be cultivated, 

* " Tho ro.'ison •\v;is, that the iipgro couhl never he trained 
to cxerei.se judgment ; lie cannot be made to u.se lii.s mind ; he 
always deiKUuls on maehinery doing its own work, and cannot 
he maile to watch it. Ih- neglects it until something is hroken or 
there i.s great wa.ste. A\'e have tried rewards and puni.shments, hut 
it makes no ditrerence. It's his nature, and you cannot change it. 
All men are indolent and have a disinclination to labour, but this 
is a great deal .stronger in the Africim race than in any other. In - 
working niggers, we must always calculate that they will not labour 
at all exrt'jit to avoid j)unishment, and they will mvir do more 
than just enough to save themselve.s from being punished, and no 
amount of punishment will prevent their working carelessly and 
indiliirently. It always seems on tho jtlantation as if they took 
j)uin8 to break all the tools and spoil nil llic cat tie that they 
pjHsibly can, even when they know they'll be piinished for it." — 
(J\m»ieil' A Sfahoanl Slavf Stdtff, Y\\ 104, lo";. 



MERITS AND DEFECTS OF FREE LABOUR. 47 

tobacco becomes the sole staple, and tobacco is 
produced whatever be the state of the market, and 
whatever be the condition of the soil.* This pecu- 
liarity of slave-labour, as we shall see, involves some 
very important consequences. 

■ Such being the character of slave-labour, as an 
industrial instrument, let us now consider the 
qualities of the agency with which, in the coloniza- 
tion of North America, it was brought into compet- 
ition. This was the labour of peasant proprietors, 
a productive instrument, in its merits and defects, 
the exact reverse of that with which it was called 
upon to compete. Thus, the great and almost the 
sole excellence of slave-labour is, as we have seen, 
its capacity for organization ; and this is precisely 
the circumstance with respect to which the labour 
of peasant proprietors is especially defective. In 
a community of peasant proprietors, each workman 
labours on his own account, without much reference 
to what his fellow-workmen are doing. There is 
no commanding mind to whose guidance the whole 
labour force will yield obedience, and under whose 
control it may be directed by skilful combinations to 
the result Avhich is desired. Nor does this system 
afford room for classification and economical dis- 
tribution of a labour force in the same degree 
as the system of slavery. Under the latter, for 

* Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 337 to 339. 



48 COMI*AUATl\i; 1:F1 IC1KN( Y uv 

I xample, occupation may l)e found for a wliole 
familv of slaves, aec()rtlin<i to the capacity of each 
nienilKT, in ])crfonnin;: tlic ditfcrent operations 
connected witli i-ertain Itraiiclu's of industry — say, 
the culture of tobacco, in wliich the women and 
chiUlreii nia\' he eniplo\cd in piekiiii:: the Mornis off 
the plants, or gathering tlie haves as they become 
ripe, while tlie nieu are engaged in the more la- 
borious tasks ; but a small proprietor, whose chil- 
dren are at school, and whose wife finds enousfh 
to occu})y lier in her domestic duties, can com- 
mand for all operations, however important or 
however insignificant, no other labour than his 
own, or that of his grown-up sons — labour which 
would l)e greatly misa])plied in performing such 
manual oj)ei-ations as I liaxc described. His team 
of liorses might be standing idle in the stable, 
while he was gathering tobacco leaves or picking 
worms, an arrangement which would render his 
work exceedingly costly. The system of peasant 
pi-oprietorship, therefore, does not admit of combina- 
tion and classification of labnur in the same degree as 
tiiat of slavery. Ihit ii" in this n-sjx'ct it lies under 
a disad\antage as compared with its rival, in every 
otiier respect it enjoys an immense superiority. 
The peasant |iroprietor, a|ipropriating the whole 
produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus t(j 
exertion. Superintendence is here completely dis- 



SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR. 49 

pensed witli. The labourer is under the strongest 
conceivable inducement to put forth, in the further- 
ance of his task, the full powers of his mind and 
body ; and his mind, instead of being purposely 
stinted and stupiiied, is enlightened by education, 
and aroused by the prospect of reward.* 

Such are the two productive agencies which came 
into competition on the soil of North America. If 
we now turn to the external conditions under which 
the competition took place, we shall, I think, have 
no difficulty in understanding the success of each 
respectively in that portion of the Continent in 
which it did in fact succeed. 

The line dividing the Slave from the Free States 
marks also an important division in the agricultural 
capabilities of North America. North of this line, 
the products for which the soil and climate are best 
adapted are cereal crops, while south of it the pre- 
vailing crops are tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar ; 
and these two classes of crops are broadly distin- 
guished in the methods of culture suitable to each. 
The cultivation of the one class, of which cotton 
may be taken as the type, requires for its efficient 
conduct that labour should be combined and organ- 
ized on an extensive scale, f On the other hand, for 

* See North Amelia, its Agriculture and Climate, by Eobert 
Enssell, chapter viii. 
t Tliiil, p. 14 r. 

4 



50 AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES OF 

the raising of cereal crops this condition is not so 
essential. Even where labour is abundant and that 
labour free, the large capitalist does not in this 
UK^de of farming appear on the Avhole to have any 
preponderating advantage over the small proprietor, 
who, with his family, cultivates his own farm, as the 
exam])lc of the best cultivated states in Europe 
proves. Whatever superiority he may have in the 
power of combining and directing labour seems to 
be compensated by the greater energy and spirit 
wliich tlie sense of property gives to the exertions of 
tlie small proprietor. But there is another essential 
circumstance in Mhicli these two classes of crops 
differ. A single labourer, Mr. Russell tells us,* can 
cultivate twenty acres of wheat or Indian corn, 
wliile he cannot manage more than two of tobacco, 
or three of cotton. It appears from this that to- 
bacco and cotton fulfil that condition which we 
saw was essential to the economical emploj^ment 
of slaves — the possibility of working large numbers 
witliin a limited space; wliile wheat and Indian corn, 
in tlic cultivation of wliich the labourers are dis- 
persed over a wide surface, fail in this respect. AVe 
thus find that cotton, and the class of crops of which 
cotton may be taken as the type, favour the employ- 
ment of slaves in the competition with peasant pro- 
prietors in two leading ways : first, they need ex- 

• Russell's lYorth America, pp. 14 J, 164. 



NORTH ASLB SOUTH. 5 I 

tensive combination and organization of labour — 
requirements which slavery is eminently calculated 
to supply, but in respect to which the labour of 
peasant proprietors is defective ; and secondly, they 
allow of labour being concentrated, and thus mini- 
mize the cardinal evil of slave-labour — the reluct- 
ance with which it is yielded. On the other hand, 
the cultivation of cereal crops, in which extensive 
combination of labour is not important, and in 
which the operations of industry are widely diffused, 
offers none of these advantages for the employ- 
ment of slaves,* while it is remarkably fitted to 
bring out in the highest degree the especial excel- 
lencies of the industry of free proprietors. Owing to 

* The same observation had been made by De Tocqueville, who 
in the following passage has suggested a further reason for the 
unsuitableness of slave-labour for raising cereal crops : — " It has 
been observed that slave-labour is a very expensive method of 
cultivating corn. The farmer of cornland in a country where 
slavery is unknown, habitually retains a small number of labourers 
in his service, and at seed-time and harvest he hires several addi- 
tional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period. But the 
agriculturist in a slave state is obliged to keep a large number of 
slaves the whole year round, in order to sow liis fields and to gather 
in his crops, although their services are only required for a few 
weeks ; but slaves are unable to wait till they are hired, and to 
subsist by their own labour in the mean time like free labourers : 
in order to have their services, they must be bought. Slavery, 
independently of its general disadvantages, is therefore still more 
inapplicable to countries in which corn is cultivated than to those 
which produce crops of a different kind." — Democracy in Aiiierica, 
vol. ii. p. 233, 

4* 



:;> SLAVE AND FREE PRODUCTS. 

these causes it has happened that shivery has been 
maintained in tlie Southern States, wliieh favour the 
•rrowth of tobaeco, cotton, and analogous products, 
wliiK', in the Northern States, of which cereal crops 
art' the great staple, it from an early period declined 
and has ultimately died out. And in confirmation 
of tliis virw it u\n\ be added that wherever in the 
.*^outliern States tlie external conditions are espe- 
cially favoural)le to cereal crops, as in parts of Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and along the slopes 
of the Alleghanies, there slavery has always failed 
to maintain itself It is owing to this cause that 
there now exists in some parts of the South a con- 
siderable element of free labouring population. 

These considerations appear to explain the perma- 
nence of slavery in one division of North America, 
and its disappearance from the other ; l)ut there are 
other conditions essential to the economic success of 
the institution besides those which have been 
brought into view in the above comparison, to 
wliieh it is necessar}' to advert in order to a right 
imderstanding of its true basis. These are hiirh 
r»,Ttilify in the soil, mid a [)i-:ietically unlimited 
extent of it. 

'I'he necessit}- of these eonditioiis to slavery will 
be a])pareiit by reflecting on the unskilfulness 
and want ot versatilit}- in slave labour to wliieh 
w.' Ii!i\c .dreadv referred. 



OTHER CONDITIONS DEMANDED BY SLAVE LABOUR. ^^ 

When the soils are not of good quality cultivation 
needs to be elaborate ; a larger caj^ital is expended ; 
and with the increase of capital the processes be- 
come more varied, and the agricultural implements 
of a liner and more delicate construction. With 
such implements slaves cannot be trusted, and for 
such processes they are unfit.* It is only, there- 

* " I am here shewn tools," says Mr. Olmsted, " that no man in 
his senses, with us, would allow a labourer, to whom he was paying 
wages, to be encumbered with ; and the excessive weight and clum- 
siness of which, I would judge, would make Avork at least ten per 
cent, greater than with those ordinarily used with us. And I am 
assured that, in the careless and clumsy way they must be used by 
the slaves, anytliing lighter or less rude could not be furnished 
them with good economy, and that such tools as we constantly give 
our labourers, and find our profit in giving them, would not last out 
a day in a Virginia cornfield — much lighter and more free from 
stones though it be than ours. 

" So, too, when I ask why mules are so universally substituted 
or horses on the farm, the first reason given, and confessedly the 
most conclusive one, is that horses cannot bear the treatment that 
they ahvays must get from negroes ; horses are always soon foun- 
dered or crip^iled by them, wliile mules will bear cudgelling, and 
lose a meal or two now and then, and not be materially inji;red, and 
they do not take cold or get sick, if neglected or overworked. But 
I do not need to go further than to the window of the room in 
wliich I am writing, to see at almost any time, treatment of cattle 
that would insure the immediate discharge of the driver by almost 
any farmer owning them in the North." In another State, a South- 
ern farmer describes to him " as a novelty, a plough ' with a sort of 
wing, lilce,' on one side, that pushed off and turned over a sHce of 
the ground ; from which it appeared that he had, until recently, 
never seen a mould-board ; the common ploughs of this country 
being constructed on the same principle as those of the Chinese, 



i;4 FERTILITY OF THE SOIL. 

fore, where the natural fertility of the soil is so 
great as to compensate for the inferiority of the 
cultivation,* where nature does so much as to leave 
little for art, and to supersede the necessity of the 
more (litlicult contrivances of industry, that slave 
labour can be turned to profitable account. f 

Further, slavery, as a ])ermanent system, has need 
not merely of a fertile soil, but of a practically un- 
limited extent of it. This arises from the defect of 
elavc labour in j)oint of versatility. As has been 
already remarked, the dilHculty of teaching the 
slave anything is so great — the result of the com- 
pulsory ignorance in ■which he is kept, combined 
with -want of intelligent interest in his work — that 
the only chance of rendering his labour profitable 

and only rooting the ground like a hog or a mole — not cleaving and 
turning." — Seaboard Slaxv States, pp. 46, 47, 402. 

• Mr. Kussell (pp. 164, 165) states that the soil on which the 
sea-island cotton is raised is " poor, consisting for the most part of 
light sand ; " hut this is scarcely an exception to the statement in 
the text. The jioouliar qualities of the soil in qiiestion, and the 
high price which its products are consequently enahled to com- 
mand, render it, in an economic sense, " a fertile soil," however it 
may he designated hy an agriculturist as " poor." 

t In a dehate in the House of Lords last session on the annex- 
ation of St. Domingo hy Spain, it was stated by the Duke of Kew- 
castle, that, in reply to the remonstrances of the British govern- 
ment relative to the apprehended introduction of slavery into that 
island, the Spanish government had referred to the great fertility of 
the Boil of St. IDomingo, which renders slairri/ unnecessary ; in which 
rt'uaoning his grace, as well as Ijord Brougham, ajipeared to aquiesce. 



EXTENT OF TERRITORY. 



55 



is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him 
to that lesson for life. Accordingly where agricul- 
tural operations are carried on by slaves the busi- 
ness of each gang is always restricted to the raising 
of a single product.* AThatever crop be best suited 
to the character of the soil and the nature of slave 
industr}^, whether cotton, tobacco, sugar, or rice, 
that crop is cultivated, and that crop only. Ro- 
tation of crops is thus precluded by the conditions 
of the case. The soil is tasked again and again 
to yield the same product, and the inevitable re- 

* " The culture [of tobacco] being once establislied [in Virginia] 
there were many reasons," says Mv. Olmsted, " growing out of the 
social structure of the colony, Avhich for more than a century kept 
the industry of the Virginians confined to this one staple. These 
reasons were chiefly the difficulty of breaking the slaves, or training 
the bond-servants to new methods of labour ; the want of enterprise 
or ingenuity in the proprietors to contrive other profitable occupa- 
tions for them ; and the difficulty or expense of distributing the 
guard or oversight, without which it was impossible to get any 
M^ork done at all, if the labourers were separated, or worked in any 
other way than side by side, in gangs, as in the tobacco fields. 
Owing to these causes, the planters kept on raising tobacco with 
hardly sufficient intermission to provide themselves with the gross- 
est animal sustenance, though often by reason of the excessive 
quantity raised, scarcely anything could be got for it." . . " Tobacco 
is not now considered peculiarly and excessively exhaustive : in a 
judicious rotation, especially as a preparation for wheat, it is an ad- 
mirable fallow-crop, and under a scientific system of agriculture, it 
is grown with no continued detriment to the soil. But in Virginia 
it was grown without interruption or alteration, and the fields ra- 
yndly deteriorated in fertility." — Scaboanl Slave States, pp. 237, 238. 



56 EXH.vrSTIKG EFFECTS OF 

Milt follows. Alter a sliurt scries of years its fer- 
tility is tuini)letely exhausted, the }>laiiter abandons 
tlie irrouiid whieh he has rendered worthless, and 
passes on to seek in new soils lor that fertility 
uiidrr Avhich alone the agencies at his disposal can 
l»e profitably eniphned. The practical results of 
the system are thus described by a native of the 
South : — " I can show you with sorrow, in the 
older portions of Alabama, and in my native county 
of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and 
exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, 
niter taking the cream off their lands, unable to 
restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are 
going further west and south in search of other 
\irgin lands, which they may and will despoil and 
impuverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters, 
with greater means and no more skill, are buying 
out their poorer neighbours, extending their plan- 
tations, and adding to their slave force. The 
Wealth}- few, who are able to live on smaller pro- 
fits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are 
thus pushing off the many, who are merely inde- 
pendent. . . In traversing that county one will dis- 
cover numer(»iis farm-houses, once the abode of in- 
dustrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by 
slaves, or teiiantless, deserted, and dilapidated ; he 
will observe fields, once fertile, now unfent-ed, aban- 

doln-d, ;iIm1 coxcrfcl with those r\\\ li;ill)inL:el'S — fox- 



SLAVE CULTURE. 



SI 



tail and broom-sedge ; he will see the moss growing 
on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages ; 
and will find ' one only master grasps the whole 
domain' that once furnished happy homes for a 
dozen families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, 
where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had 
been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already 
exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay 
apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas ; the fresh- 
ness of its agricultural glory is gone, the vigour of 
its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation 
seems brooding over it."* Even in Texas, before it 
had yet been ten years under the dominion of this 
devastating system, Mr. Olmsted tells us that the 
spectacle so familiar and so melancholy in all the 
older Slave States Avas already not unfrequently 
seen by the traveller — " an abandoned plantation 
of ' worn-oat' fields with its little village of dwell- 
ings, now a home only for wolves and vultures." 

Slave cultivation, therefore, precluding the con- 
ditions of rotation of crops or skilful management, 
tends inevitably to exhaust the land of a country, 
and consequently requires for its permanent success 
not merely a fertile soil but a practically unlimited 
extent of it. f 

* Address of the Hon. C. C. Clay, jun., a slaveholder and advo- 
cate of slavery, reported by the author in De Bow's Review, and 
quoted by Olmsted, Seahoard Slave States, p. ^'j6. 

t Olmsted's Texas, p. xiv. If there be any fact upon which all 



5 8 GENEHAL CONCLUSION. 

To sum up, tlitii, the eouclusions at which we 
have* arriwd, tlic successful niaintL-nauce of slavery, 
ns a system of industry, requires the following con- 
ditions : — ist. Al»uii(hiiice ot" lertilo soil ; and, 2nd. 
a erop tlie cultivatiuu of which demands combina- 
tion and organization of labour on an extensive 
scale, and admits of its concentration. It is owing 
to the j)resence of these conditions that slavery has 
niaiutained itself in the Southern States of North 
America, and to their absence that it has disap- 
pearetl from the Northern States. 

competent witnesses to the condition of the Slave States are agreed 
it is the rapid deterioration of the soil under slave cultivation. On 
this point Engli.sh, French, and Aniericn writers, the opponents 
and advocates of slavery, are at one. Yet a writer in the Saturday 
Ji'(vieio (Sow 2, 1 861) does not hesitate, on his own unsupported 
autliority, to characterize tliis belief as " a jiopular fallacy." If it 
be a fiUlacy, it is certainly not only a i)opular but a plausible one, 
since it has succeeded iu deceiving Miss !Martineau, Olmsted, 
KusscU, Stirling, and every writer of the least pretension to au- 
thority on the subject, no matter what his leaumgs. It is for the 
reader to make liis choice between their united testimony and the 
closet experience of a Saturday Reviewer. 



59 



CHAPTER III. 

INTEKNAL OKGANIZATION OF SLAVE COMMUNITIES. 

The explanation offered in the last chapter of the 
success and failure of slavery in different portions of 
North America resolved itself into the proposition, 
that in certain cases the institution was found to 
be economically profitable while it proved unprofi- 
table in others. From this position — the profitable- 
ness of slavery under given external conditions — 
the inference is generally made by those who advo- 
cate or look with indulgence on the system, that 
slavery must be regarded as conducive to at least 
the material well-being of countries in which these 
conditions exist ; and these conditions being admit- 
tedly present in the Slave States of North America, 
it is concluded that the abolition of slavery in those 
states would necessarily be attended with a dimi- 
nution of their wealth, and by consequence, owing 
to the mode in which the interests of all nations 
are identified through commerce, with a corre- 
sponding injury to the material • interests of the 
rest of the world. In this manner it is attempted 
to enlist the selfish feelings of mankind in favour of 
the institution ; and it is not impossible that many 
persons, who would be disposed to condemn it ujdou 



6o ECC»N()MIC SUCCESS OF SLAVERY : 

moral ^^roiimls, an- tliiis Kd to coiiiiive at its exist- 
eiR'o. It will therutort' be desirable, before pro- 
coediii«r further with the investigation of our sul)ject, 
to uncertain precisely the extent of tlie admission in 
favour of the system whicli is involved in the fore- 
going explanation of its success. 

An<l, in the lirst plaei', it must be remarked 
that the profitableness which has been attributed to 
slavery is prolitableness estimated exclusively from 
the point of view of the jiroprietor of slaves. Pro- 
fitableness in this sense is all that is necessary to ac- 
count i'nv the inti'oductioii and maintenance of the 
svstem (which was the problem witli which alone we 
were concerned), since it was with tlie proprietors 
that the decision rested. But those who are ac- 
(piainted with the elementary principles which 
g(»verii tiie distribution of wealth, know that the 
l»rofits of ca])italists may be increased by the same 
l»rocess by which the gross revenue of a country is 
diminished, and that tlierefore the community as a 
whole may be impoverished through the very same 
means by whiih a |)ortinn of its iniml)er is enriched. 
The economic success of slavery, therefore, is per- 
I'tH-tly consistent with the supposition that it is pre- 
judicial to the material well-being of the country 
where it is established. The argument, in short, 
■lues to thi> : the interests of slave-masters — or 
rafhiT that which slave-masters believe to be their 



IN WHAT SENSE CONCEDED. 6 1 

interests — are no more identical with the interests 
of the general population in slave countries in the 
matter of wealth, than in that of morals or politics. 
That which benefits, or seems to benefit, the one in 
any of these departments, may injure the other. It 
follows, therefore, that the economic advantages 
possessed by slavery, which were the inducement 
to its original establishment and which cause it 
still to be upheld, are perfectly compatible with its 
being an obstacle to the industrial development of 
the country, and at variance with the best interests, 
material as well as moral, of its inhabitants. 

Further, the profitableness which has been at- 
tributed to slavery does not even imply that the 
system is conducive to the interests (except in the 
narrowest sense of the word) of the class for whose 
especial behoof it exists. Individuals and classes 
may always be assumed to follow their o^\ti interests 
according to their lights and tastes ; but that which 
their lights and tastes point out as their interest 
will vary with the degree of their intelligence and 
the character of their civilization. AYhen the in- 
telligence of a class is limited and its civilization 
low, the view it will take of its interests will be 
correspondingly narrow and sordid. Extravagant 
and undue importance will be attached to the mere 
animal pleasures. A small gain obtained by coarse 
and obvious methods will be preferred to a great 



62 EC-GNOMIC SUCCESS OF SLAVKRY : 

one wliifh roqiiiros ii recourse to more refined ex- 
pedients ; and tlie future well-being of tlie race 
will he re'-'nrded as of less importance than the 
a"fn*andisement of the existing generation. 

r.iit (.iir admissions in favour of slavery require 
still furtlur (jualilication. Tlie establishment of 
slavery in the Southern States was accounted for by 
its superiorit\- in an economic point of view over 
free la))(>ur, in the form in wliieh free labour ex- 
isted in America at the time wlien that continent 
was settled. Now, the sujx-riority of slaver}'- over 
free labour to wliieli its establishment was originally 
owin<x, is bv no means to be assumed as still exist- 
ing in virtue of the fact that slavery is still main- 
tained. Of two S3'stems one may at a given period 
be more ])rofitable than the other, and may on this 
account be established, but may afterwards cease to 
Imj so, and yet may nevertheless continue to be 
upli( Id, either from habit, or from unwillingness 
to adopt new methods, or from cono-enialitv with 
tasti'S which liave l)een formed under its influence. 
It is a dillicult and >h>\v process under all i-ireum- 
stunces to alter the iiidu>ti-ial s\stem of a country ; 
l)Ut the difhculty of exchanging one form of free 
industry for another is a])solutely inappreciable 
w lien compared with that which we encounter when 
we attempt to sul)stitute free for servile institutions, 
it is thcreibre quite possible — how far the case is 



IN WHAT SENSE CONCEDED. 6;^ 

actually so I shall afterwards examine — that the 
persistent maintenance of the system at the present 
day may be due less to its economical advantages 
than to the habits and tastes it may have engen- 
dered, and to the enormous difficulty of getting rid 
of it. Since the settlement of the Southern States 
a vast change has taken place in the American 
continent. Free labour, which was then scarce and 
costly, has now in many of the large towns become 
superabundant ; and it is quite possible that, even 
with external conditions so favourable to slavery 
as the southern half of North America undoubtedly 
presents, free labour would now, on a fair trial, 
be found more than a match for its antagonist. 
Such a trial, however, is not possible under the 
present regime of the South. Slavery is in posses- 
sion of the field, and enjoys all the advantages 
which possession in such a contest confers. 

The concession then in favour of slavery, involved 
in the explanation given of its definitive establish- 
ment in certain portions of North America, amounts 
to this, that under certain conditions of soil and 
climate^ cultivation by slaves may for a time yield a 
larger net revenue than cultivation by certain forms of 
free labour. This is all that needs to be assumed to 
account for the original establishment of slavery. 
But the maintenance of the institution at the present 
day does not imply even this quantum of advantage 



64 STRlTTrRE OF A SLAVE SOCIETY 

ill its favour ; since, owing to the immense difficulty 
<»f jxettin"! rid «>f it wlun once established on an ex- 
tensive sealr, the reasons i<>r its continuance (re- 
garding tin- (jui'stiou i'vnin tlic jxjint of view of the 
slavelioldcrs) may, where it has once obtained a 
firm footing, prcN'ail (n-er tlios^e for its abolition, 
even tliough it be far infei'ior as a productive in- 
strument to free-labour. The most, therefore, that 
can be interred from the existence of the system at 
the present d:t\- i> that it is self-supporting. 

Having now cleared the ground from the several 
false inferences with Avliieh tlie economic success of 
slaver}^ such as it is, is apt to l)e surrounded, I 
proceed to trace the consequences, economic social 
and political, which flow from the institution. 

The comparative anatomist, by reasoning on those 
fixed relations between the difl*erent parts of the 
aiiiiiKil i'nime which his science reveals to him, is 
able from a fragment of a tooth or bone to de- 
termine the I'onii, dimensions, and habits of the 
creature to which it belonged ; and with no less 
accuracy, it seems to me, may a political economist, 
l)y reasoning on the economic character of slavery 
and its peculiar connexion with the soil, deduce its 
leading social and political attributes, and almost 
construct, by way of a priori argument, the entire 
system of the socict}' of wliirli it forms the founda- 
tion. A l)rief (•oiisi(l<r:itioii ol" the economic priii- 



MOULDED BY ITS ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 6^ 

ciples on which, as we have seen in a former chapter, 
slavery supports itself, will enable us to illustrate 
this remark. 

It was then seen that slave labour is, from the 
nature of the case, unskilled labour ; and it is evi- 
dent that this circumstance at once excludes it from 
the field of manufacturing and mechanical industry. 
Where a workman is kept in compulsory ignorance, 
and is, at the same time, without motive for exerting 
his mental faculties, it is quite impossible that he 
should take part with efiiciency in the difiicult and 
delicate operations which most manufacturing and 
mechanical processes involve. The care and dex- 
terity which the management of machinery requires 
is not to be obtained from him, and he Avould often 
do more damage in an hour than the produce of his 
labour for a year would cover. Slavery, therefore, 
at least in its modern form, has never been, and can 
never be, employed with success in manufacturing- 
industry. And no less plain is it that it is unsuited 
to the functions of commerce ; for the soul of com- 
merce is the spirit of enterprise, and this is ever 
found wanting in communities where slavery exists : 
their prevailing characteristics are subjection to 
routine and contempt for money-making pursuits. 
Moreover, the occupations of commerce are abso- 
lutely prohibitive of the employment of servile la- 
bour. A mercantile marine composed of slaves is 

5 



66 AGRlCrLTlH!:— THE SOLE CAREER FOR SLAVERY. 

a Inrin «>f iiuliistry wliicli thr woi-Ul has not yet 
siM-ii. .Miitiiiics ill uiid-dccaii and (k'SCTtioiis the 
111. .Hunt the vessel touched at l(.rei<ni ports would 
(|Mii kl\ reduce the force to a cipher. 

Slavery, therefore, excluded by these causes from 
tlie field of manufactures and commerce, finds its 
natural career in afrriculture ; and, from what has 
l.cen already established respecting the peculiar 
(pialities of slave hd)()ur, we may easily divine tlie 
form Mhieh aLii-icnltnral industr)' will assume under 
a servile regime. The single merit of slave labour 
as an industrial instrument consists, as we have seen, 
in its capacity for organization — its susceptibility, 
that is to say, of being adjusted with precision to 
the kind of work to be done, and of being directed 
on a comprehensive plan towards some distinctly 
conceived end. Now to give scope to this quality, 
the scale on which industry is carried on must be 
extensive, and, to carry on industry on an extensive 
scale, large capitals are recpiired. Large capitalists 
will therefore have, in slave communities, a special 
and j>eculiar advantage over small capitalists beyond 
that which thoy enjoy in countries where labour is 
free. Uut there is another circumstance which ren- 
ders a considerable cipital still more an indispen- 
sable condition to tlie successful conduct of in- 
dustrial operations in slave countries. A capitalist 
who cnij.loys free labour needs for the support of 



EXIGENCIES OF SLAVE AGRICULTURE. 67 

his labour force a sum sufficient to cover the amount 
of their wages during the interval which elapses 
from the commencement of their operations until 
the sale of the produce which results from them. 
But the capitalist employing slave labour requires 
not merely this sum — represented in his case by the 
food, clothing, and shelter provided for his slaves 
during the corresponding period — but, in addition 
to this, a sum sufficient to purchase the fee-simple 
of his entire slave force. For the conduct of a 
given business, therefore, it is obvious that the em- 
ployer of slave labour will require a much larger 
capital than the employer of free labour. The ca- 
pital of the one will represent merely the current 
outlay ; wdiile the capital of the other will repre- 
sent, in addition to this, the future capabilities of 
the productive instrument. The one will represent 
the interest, the other the principal and interest, 
of the labour employed.* Owing to these causes 

* The operation of the economic principle which I have endea- 
voured to explain is well illustrated in the following case put by Mr. 
Olmsted : — 

" Let us suppose two recent immigrants, one in Texas, the other 
in the young free State of Iowa, to have hoth, at the same time, a 
considerable sum of money — say five thousand dollars — at disposal. 
Land has been previously purchased, a hasty dwelluig of logs con- 
structed, and ample crops for sustenance harvested. Each has found 
communication with his market interrupted during a portion of the 
year by floods ; each needs an ampler and better house ; each de- 
sires to engage a larger part of his land in profitable production ; 



68 KKSILTS : MAGNITUDE OF TLANTATIONS. 

liir«^e cMiiitals :irr, rdat'iN t-ly to siiimII, more pro- 
litaliK', Jiiid arc. at the saiiR- tinic, alj.sohitol}' more 
iH-cjuircd ill ectuiitrirs ni" slave, than in couiitrios of 
iVtf, lalMnir. It liappens, however, tliat capital is in 
slave countries a partii'ularly scarce commodity, 
owing partly to the exclusion from such countries 
of many modes of creating it — manufactures and 

each noeils some agricultural machinery or implements ; in the 
neighbourhood of uacli, a church, a school, a grist-mill, and a branch 
r.iilruad are projiosed. E;ich may be supposed to have previously 
obtained the necessary materials for his desired constructions ; and 
to net'd immediately tho services of a carpenter. The Texan, un- 
al)Ie to hire (tne in the neighbourhood, orders his agent in Houston 
or New Orleans to buy him one : when he arrives, he has cost not 
less than two of the live thousand dollars. The lowan, in the same 
predicament, writes to a friend in the East or advertises in the news- 
papers, tliat he is ready to pay better wages than carpenters can get 
in the older settlements ; and a young man, whose only capital is in 
his hantls and his wits, glad to come where there is a glut of food 
and a dearth of labour, soon presents himself. To construct a cause- 
way and a bridge, and to clear, fence, and break up the land he de- 
sires to bring into cultivation, the Texan will need three more slaves 
— and he gets them as before, thereby investing "ull his money. 
Tlie lowan has only to let his demand be known, or, at most, to ad- 
vance a small sum to the public conveyances, and all the labourers 
he retpiires — independent small capitidists of labour — gladly bring 
tlirir only commodity to him and ofler it as a loan, on his promise 
to jtay a better interest, or wages, for it than Eastern capitalists are 
willing to do. The lowan next sends for the implements mul ma- 
< hinory which will enable him to make the best use of the labour he 
li.Ls engaged. The Texan tries to get on another year without them, 
or employs such rude substilutos as his stupid, uninstructed, and 
uninteresU'd slavoa can readily make in lib ill-furnished plantation 



INDEBTEDNESS OF PLANTERS. 69 

commerce for example — which are open to free 
communities, and partly to what is also a conse- 
quence of the institution — the unthrifty habits of 
the upper classes. We arrive therefore at this sin- 
gular conclusion, that, while large capitals in coun- 
tries of slave labour enjoy peculiar advantages, and 
while the aggregate capital needed in them for the 

work-shop. The lowan is able to contribute liberally to aid in the 
construction of the church, the school-house, the mill, and the rail- 
road. His labourers, appreciating the value of the reputation they 
may acquire for honesty, good judgment, skill, and industry, do not 
need constant superintendence, and he is able to call on his neigh- 
bours and advise, encourage, and stimulate them. Thus the church, 
the school, and the railroad are soon in operation, and with them is 
brought rapidly into play other social machinery, which makes much 
luxury common and cheap to all. The Texan, if solicited to assist 
in similar enterprises, answers truly, that cotton is yet too low to 
permit him to invest money where it does not promise to be imme- 
diately and directly productive. The lowan may still have one or 
two thousand dollars, to be lent to merchants, mechanics, or manu- 
facturers, who are disposed to establish themselves near him. With 
the aid of this capital, not only various minor conveniences are 
brought into the neighbourhood, but useful information, scientific, 
agricultural, and political ; and commodities, the use of which is 
educative of taste and the finer capacities of our nature, are attrac- 
tively presented to the people. The Texan mainly does without 
these things. He confines the imports of liis plantation almost en- 
tirely to slaves, corn, bacon, salt, sugar, molasses, tobacco, clotliing, 
medicine, hoes, and plough-iron. Even if he had the same capital to 
spare, he would live in far less comfort than the lowan, because of 
the want of local shops and efficient systems of public conveyance 
Avhich cheapen the essentials of comfort for the latter." — Texas, 
pp. viii.-x. 



■JO UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

I'oiiduct of M ^^ivL-n amount of industry is greater 
than ill cuiintrifs wlu-rr lahour is free, capital never- 
theless in Mich countries is exceptionally scarce. 
jr.. Ill tliis state of tliiiiffs result two phenomena 
wliich niav be regarded as typical of industry carried 
on by slaves — the magnitude of the ])hintations and 
the indebtedness of tlie planters. \\'herever negro 
slavery has ]>ri'vailed in modern times, these two 
])henomena will be found to exist. They form the 
burthen of most of what has been written on our 
W i-t Indian I>laiids while under the regime of 
slavery ; and they are not less prominently the cha- 
racteristic features of the industrial system of the 
Southern States. " Our wealthier planters," says Mr. 
Clay, " are buying out their poorer neighbours, ex- 
tending their plantations, and adding to their slave 
force. The "wealthy few, who are able to live on 
smaller [irofits, and to give their blasted fields some 
lest, are thus pushing off the many who are merely 
independent." At the same time these wealthier 
jtlanters are, it is ^\cll known, very generally in 
debt, the forthcoming crops being fur the most part 
mortgaged to Northern capitalists, who make the 
needful advances, and Avho thus become the instru- 
ments by which a coiisidei'able proportion of the 
slave laboui" of tlie South is maintained. The ten- 
<lcncy of things, thercfoi-e, in >la\c countries is to a 
Mi-y uncfjual di>tribulioii of weahli. The Jai'o'C 



WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. 7 I 

capitalists, having a steady advantage over their 
smaller competitors, engross, with the progress of 
time, a larger and larger proportion of the aggre- 
gate wealth of the country, and gradually acquire 
the control of its collective industry. Meantime, 
amongst the ascendant class a condition of general 
indebtedness prevails. 

But we may carry our deductions from the 
economic character of slavery somewhat further. 
It has been seen that slave cultivation can only 
maintain itself where the soil is rich, while it pro- 
duces a steady deterioration of the soils on which it 
is employed. This being so, it is evident that in 
countries of average fertility but a small portion 
of the whole area will be available for this mode of 
cultivation, and that this portion is ever becoming 
smaller, since, as the process of deterioration pro- 
ceeds, more soils are constantly reaching that con- 
dition in Avhich servile labour ceases to be profit- 
able. AVhat, then, is to become of the remainder — 
that large portion of the country which is either na- 
turally too poor for cultivation by slaves, or which 
has been made so by its continued employment ? 
It will be thought, perhaps, that this may be worked 
by free labour, and that by a judicious combination 
of both forms of industry the whole surface of the 
country may be brought to the highest point of 
productiveness. But this is a moral impossibility : 



•Jl WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. 

it i> prccliKk'tl li\ what, we shall liiid, is a car- 
dinal tt-atmv in thu structure of slave societies — 
their exclusiveiiess. In tree countries industry is 
the path to indejiendence, to wealth, to social dis- 
tinction, and is tlierefore held in honour ; in slave 
countries it is the Nocation of the slave, and becomes 
therefore a badge of degradation. The free labourer, 
consequently, who respects his calling and desires to 
be respected, instinctively shuns a country where 
industry is discredited, where he cannot engage in 
th»»sr i»ursuits by which wealth and independence 
are to be gained without placing himself on a level 
with the lowest of mankind. Free and slave labour 
are, therefore, incapable of being blended together 
in the same system. AVhere slavery exists it ex- 
cludes all other forms of industrial life. " The tra- 
veller," says De Tocqueville, " who floats down the 
current of the Ohio, may be said to sail between 
liberty and servitude. Upon the left bank of the 
stream the population is sparse ; from time to time 
one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half. 
desert fields ; the primaeval forest recurs at every 
turn ; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, 
and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of 
life. From the riLdit bank, on the contrary, a con- 
In-td huin is jieard which proclaims the presence of 
industry ; the fields are co\ ei'ed with abundant 
iiarvests ; the elegance of the dwellings announces 



WASTE LANDS IN SLAVE COUNTRIES. 73 

the taste and activity of tlie labourer ; and man ap- 
pears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and 
contentment which is the reward of labour. Upon 
the left bank of the Ohio labour is confounded with 
the idea of slavery, upon the right bank it is identi- 
fied with that of prosperity and improvement ; on 
the one side it is degraded, on the other it is 
honoured ; on the former territory no white labour- 
ers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimi- 
lating themselves to the negroes ; on the latter no 
one is idle, for the white population extends its 
activity and its intelligence to every kind of employ- 
ment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate 
the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and luke- 
^varm ; whilst those who are enlightened either do 
nothing, or pass over into the State of Ohio, where 
they may work without dishonour."* 

* Demotracy in America, vol. ii. pp. 222, 223. "The negroes," 
says IVIr. Olmsted, '• are a degraded people — degraded not merely 
by position, but actually immoral, low-lived ; without healthy am- 
bition ; but little influenced by high moral considerations ; and, in 
regard to labour, not at all affected by regard for duty. This is 
universally recognized, and debasing fear, not cheering hope, is in 
general allowed to be their only stimulant to exertion. . . IsTow, 
let the white labourer come here from the North or from Europe — 
his nature demands a social life — shall he associate with the poor, 
slavish, degraded, low-lived, despised, unambitious negi-o, vnih. 
whom labour and punishment are almost synonymous 1 or shall he 
be the friend and companion of the white man, in whose mind 
labour is habitually associated with no ideas of duty, responsibility, 



74 SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES. 

Ai:ri(iiltiiiT, tluTeloiv, when curried on l)y slaves, 
]h-i]\'j: 1»v a snre law restricted to the most fertile 
jtortioiis of tlie land, and no other Ibrni of sys- 
tematic indnstry beinir possible where slavery is 
estal»li>lied, it happens that there are in all slave 
countries vast districts, becoming, under the deterio- 
rating effects of slave industry, constantly larger, 
which are wholly surrendered to nature, and re- 
main for ever as wilderness. This is a charac- 
teristic feature in the political economy of the 
Slave States of the South, and is attended with 

comfort, luxury, cultivation, or elevation and expansion either of 
miud or estate, as it is where the ordinary labourer is a free man 
— free to use his labour as a means of obtaining all these and all 
else that is to be respected, honoured, or envied in the world ? As- 
sociating with either or both, is it not inevitable that he will be 
rapidly demoralized — that he Avill soon learn to hate labour, give as 
little of it for his liire as he can, become base, cowardly, faithless — 
' worse than a nigger' 1 . . . When we reflect how little the 
great body of our working men are consciously much affected by 
moral considerations in their movements, one is tempted to suspect 
that the Almighty hius endowed the great transatlantic migration 
with a new instinct, by which it is unconsciously repelled from the 
demoralizing and debilitating influence of slavery, as migi-ating birds 
have sometimes been thought to be from pestilential regions. I 
know not else how to account for the remarkable indisposition to be 
sent to Virginia which I have seen manifested by poor Irishmen 
and Germans, who could have known, 1 think, no luore of the evils 
of slavery to the wliites in the Slave States, than the slaves them- 
selves know of tlio eflect of conscription in France, and who cer- 
tainly could have been governed by no considerations of self- 
respect." 



THE ' MEAN WHITES.' 75 

social consequences of the most important kind. 
For the tracts thus left, or made, desolate become in 
time the resort of a numerous horde of people, who, 
too poor to keep slaves and too proud to work, pre- 
fer a vagrant and precarious life spent in the desert 
to engaging in occupations which would associate 
them with the slaves whom they despise. In the 
Southern States no less than five millions of human 
beings are now said to exist in this manner in a con- 
dition little removed from savage life, eking out a 
wretched subsistence by hunting, by fishing, by 
hiring themselves out for occasional jobs, by plun- 
der. Combining the restlessness and contempt for 
regular industry peculiar to the savage with the 
vices of the proletaire of civilized communities, these 
people make up a class at once degraded and danger- 
ous, and, constantly reinforced as they are by all that 
is idle, worthless, and lawless among the population 
of the neighbouring states, form an inexhaustible pre- 
serve of ruffianism, ready at hand for all the worst 
purposes of Southern ambition. The planters com- 
plain of these people for their idleness, for corrupting 
their slaves, for their thievish propensities ; but they 
cannot dispense with them ; for, in truth, they per- 
form an indispensable function in the economy of 
slave societies, of which they are at once the victims 
and the principal supports. It is from their ranks 
that those filibustering expeditions are recruited 



-6 Till-: ' mi: AX whites. 

wliicli \\-d\v \k'vi\ tnimd su L'flV'ctivc nu iiistruiiuiit in 
extemliii^^ tliL' domain ot"tlK' Slave Power ; they liir- 
iiish the Border KufHaiis wlio in the eolonization strug- 
gle with the Northern States contend witli Freesoilers 
on tile Territories; and it is to their antipathy to the 
negroes that the i)lanters seeiirely trust for repres- 
sing every attempt at servile insurrection. Such are 
the " mean whites" or " white trash" of the Southern 
States. They comprise several local subdivisions, 
the " crackers," the " sandhillers," the " clay-eaters," 
and man\- more. The class is ncjt peculiar to any 
one localitv, but is tlie invariable outgi'owth of negro 
slavery wherever it has raised its head in modern 
times. It may Ik- seen in the new state of Texas* 
as well as in the old settled districts of Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and Georgia; in the AVest India Islandsf 
nu less than on the Continent. In the states of the 
Confederacy it comprises, as I have said, five millions 
of human beings — about seven-tenths of the whole 
wliite i)Opulation. 

Tlie industry of the Slave States, we have seen, is 
exclusively a^irieultural ; and the mode of airricul- 
ture i)ursued in them has been represented as partial, 
I'ci'functory, and exhaustive. It must, howevi-r, be 
admittrd that, to a certain extent, this tlescriptiun is 
ap|>lieable U) the industrial condition of all new 

* ( )liii.stctrs Tixns, ]>. xvii. ; iinto. 

i Mi'iival».''8 Colonization and tlu Colonim, p. 83 ; lu't^', new cd. 



FREE INDUSTRY IN NEW COUNTRIES. 77 

countries, and will find illustrations in the western 
regions of the Free States ; and it may therefore 
occur to the reader that the economical condi- 
tions which I have described are rather the conse- 
quence of the recent settlement of the societies 
where they prevail than specihc results of the 
system of slavery. But it is easy to show that 
this view of the case is fallacious, and proceeds 
from confounding what is essential in slave-industry 
with an accidental and temporary feature in the 
industrial career of free communities. The settlers 
in new countries, whether they be slave-holders or 
free peasants, naturally fix in the first instance on 
the richest and most conveniently situated soils, 
and find it more profitable to cultivate these lightly, 
availing themselves to the utmost of the resources 
which nature offers, than to force cultivation on 
inferior soils after the manner of high farming in 
old countries. So far the cases are similar. But 
here lies the difference. The labour of free peasants, 
though of course more productive on rich than on 
inferior soils, is not necessarily confined to the 
former ; whereas this is the case with the labour 
of slaves. According, therefore, as free peasants 
multiply, after the best soils have been appropri- 
ated, the second best are taken into cultivation ; 
and as they multiply still more, cultivation becomes 
still more general, until ultimately all the cultivable 



78 FREE INDUSTRY IN NKW COUNTRIES. 

portiniis of the country arc brouglit within the 
domain oi' industi-w IWit as slaves multiply, their 
uiastors cannot have recourse to inlerior soils : tlicy 
must lind for them new soils : the mass of the coun- 
tr\-, tliereibre, remains uncultivated, aud the popu- 
lation increases only by dispci-sion. A<rain, al- 
thou^rh the mode of cultivation pursued l)y free 
peasants in new lands is generally far from what 
would be approved of by the scientific farmers of 
ohl countries, still it does not exhaust the soil in the 
same manner as eultivation carried on by slaves. 
"I hold myself justified," says Mr. Olmsted, " in as- 
serting that the natural elements of wealth in the 
soil of Texas will have been more exhausted in ten 
years, and with them the rewards offered by Provi- 
dence to labour will have been more lessened, than 
witliout slavery would have been the case in two 
liundred." . . . "After two hundred years' occupa- 
tion of similar soils by a free-labouring community, 
I luive seen no such evidences of wtaste as in Texas I 
liave after ten years of slavery.''* ..." Waste of soil 
and injudicious application of labour are common 
in the agriculture of the North ; . . . but nowhere 
is tlic land with what is attached to it now less pro- 
mising and suitable for the residence of a refined 
and civilized ])eople than it was before the opera- 
tiwii>, which have been attended with the alleged 

• Olinfttcd's Texas, p. xiv. 



COMPARED WITH SLAA'^E INDUSTRY. 79 

waste, were commenced." The same is not true of 
Virginia or the Carolinas, or of any other district 
where slavery has predominated for an historic pe- 
riod. " The land in these cases is positively less capa- 
ble of sustaining a dense civilized community than 
if no labour at all had been expended upon it."* 
The superficial and careless mode of agriculture pur- 
sued by free peasants in new countries is, in short, 
accidental and temporary, the result of the excep- 
tional circumstances in which they are placed, and 
gives place to a better system as population increases 
and inferior soils are brought under the plough ; but 
the superficiality and exhaustiveness of agriculture 
carried on by slaves are essential and unalterable 
qualities, rendering all cultivation impossible but 
that which is carried on upon the richest soils, and 
irremovable by the growth of population, since 
they are an effectual bar to this. 

My position is, that in slave communities agricul- 
ture is substantiallyf the sole occupation, while 
this single pursuit is prematurely arrested in its 
development, never reaching those soils of secondary 

* Olmsted's Texas, p. xviii. ; note. 

t I do not mean to assert tliat there is no mechanical or manu- 
facturing industry carried on in the Slave States, In some of the 
principal towns, no doubt, there is, though to a limited extent, 
and here it is chiefly the result of JN'orthern enterprise. What 
I intend to say is, that the amount of industry of tliis kind is 
so small, that in speaking of the resources of national wealth, it 
need not be taken account of. 



8o FUEE INDUSTRY IN NEW COUNTRIES 

• juality wliich, under a system of free industry, 
wi.uld, with the fn'OANth of soeiety, be brought under 
cultivation ; and of tliis statement the industrial 
history of tlu- Vwi- and Slave States forms one 
continued illustration. The state of Virginia, for 
example, is the longest settled state in the Union, 
and for general productive purposes, one of the 
most richly endowed. It possesses a fertile soil, a 
genial climate ; it is rich in mineral productions, 
in iron, in copper, in coal — the coal fields of 
\ irginia being amongst the most extensive in 
the world, and the coal of superior quality ; it 
is approached by one of the noblest bays ; it is 
watered b}- numerous rivers, some of them na- 
vigable for considerable distances, and most of 
them capable of affording abundance of water 
power for manufacturing purposes.* With such 
advantages, Virginia, a region as large as England, 
could not fail, in a career of two hundred and fifty 
years, under a system of free industry, to become a 
state of great wealth, population, and power. Iler 
mineral and manufacturing, as well as her agricul- 
tural, resources would be brought into requisition ; 
her population would increase with rapidity, and 
become concentrated in large towns ; her agricul- 
ture would be extended over the whole surface 
of the countiy. IWit what is the result of the 

• Olinsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 165, 166. 



COMrARED WITH SLAVE INDUSTRY. 8 1 

experiment under a slave regime ? After a na- 
tional life of two hundred and fifty years the 
Avhole free population is still under one million 
souls.* Eight-tenths of her industry are devoted 
to agriculture ; and the progress which has been 
made in this, the principal pursuit, may be esti- 
mated by the significant fact, that the average price 
per acre of cultivated land in Virginia is no more 
than eight dollars. Contrast this with the progress 
made in fifty years by the free state of Ohio — a 
state smaller in area than Virginia, and inferior in 
variety of resources. Ohio was admitted as a state 
into the Union in 1802, and in 1850 its population 
numbered nearly two millions, f Like Virginia it 
is chiefly agricultural, though not from the same 
causes, Ohio being from its resources and internal 
position adapted in a peculiar manner to agricul- 
ture, while the resources of Virginia would fit it 
equally for manufactures or commerce ; but, while 
the average price of cultivated land per acre in 
Virginia, after an agricultural career of two hun- 
dred and fifty years, is eight dollars, the average 
price in Ohio, after a career of fifty years, is 

* The actual numbers were in 1850 : — 

Whites ... ... 894,800 

Free coloured ... 54,333 



Total free ... 949,133 
t The actual numbers were, 1,980,329. 



82 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE STATES 

twenty dollars. The eontrnst will of course only 
It.ct.mc more striki^L^ il", instead of a free state 
of fift\' years' nrpowth, we take one more nearly 
on a i>:ir in the duration of its career with the 
slave state with wliich it is compared. New 
dersey, for example, was founded about the same 
time as Virginia. Its climate, Mr. Olmsted tells us, 
dilfirs imperceptibly from that of Virginia, owing 
to its vicinity to the ocean, while its soil is decidedly 
less fertile ; but such progress has been made in 
bringing that soil under cultivation that, against 
eight dollars per acre — the average price of land in 
N'irginia — there is to be set in Xew Jersey an average 
of fort3'-four dollars.* Let us take another example. 
New York and Massachusetts are also, in relation 

* Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, p. 171. In connexion witli 
this (.[uostion 'Mr. "Weston {Progress of Slavery) gives the following 
striking statistics, p. 17 : — " The following were the prices per acre 
in the states and counties named, and the per centage of slaves in 
Kentucky and the counties named : — 

Ohio 

Indiana ... 

Illinois 

Kentucky 

Ohio counties adjoining Kentucky 

Kentucky counties adjoining Ohio 

Indiana counties adjoining Kentucky ... 

Kentucky counties adjoining Indiana ... 

Illinois counties adjacent to Kentucky ... 

Kentucky counties iidjacent to Illinois... 



Value 


Per cent. 


per acre. 


o/slav<.t. 


$19-99 




\o'66 




7-99 




9-03 


22 


32-34 




18-27 


10 


ii'34 




1044 


21 


4-65 




4'54 


18" 



TREMATURELY ARRESTED. 83 

to Virginia, contemporary states. In agricultin-al 
resources they are greatly its inferiors, the soil of 
Massachusetts in particular being sterile and its 
climate harsh. What then has been the relative 
progress made by these three states in bringing 
their respective soils under cultivation ? In Vir- 
ginia, 265 per cent, of her whole area had, in 1852, 
been brought under tillage ; in New York, 41 per 
cent. ; and in Massachusetts, 42 J per cent. But 
these facts do not convey their full lesson till we 
add that, in bringing 26^ per cent, of her soil 
under cultivation, Virginia employed eight-tenths 
of her industrial population, while New York and 
Massachusetts, in bringing under cultivation much 
larger proportions of their areas, employed but six 
and four-tenths of their respective populations.* It 
thus appears that Virginia, with great agricultural 
resources and a population almost wholly devoted 
to agriculture, has been far outstripped in her own 
peculiar branch of industry by states of inferior 
resources, and whose industry has been largely or 
principally devoted to other pursuits. The same 

* These facts are given in an '* Address to the Farmers of Vir- 
ginia," by the Virginia /State Agncultural Society, which, after 
having been twice read, approved, and adopted, was finally rejected 
on the ground that " there were admissions in it which would feed 
the fanaticism of the abolitionists;" but "no one argued against it on 
the ground of the falsity or inaccuracy of its returns." It is quoted 
at length by Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp., 167-170. 



84 NET RESULTS OF SLAVE INDUSTRY. 

c.mparison mi^^ht be continued throughout the 
otluT Free and Shive states witli anah)o:ous results. 
The c^fncral truth is, that in tlie Free States, 
wliere external eirciinistanees are favourable, in- 
(histrv is distril»uted over many occupations — manu- 
lactuns, mining, commerce, agriculture ; while in 
the Slave States, however various be the resources 
of tlie countrv. it is substantially confined to one — 
a"-ricuUure, and in this one is prematurely arrested, 
never reaching that stage of development which in 
countries where labour is free is early attained. 

The reader is now in a position to understand 
the kind of economic success wliieh slavery has 
achieved. It consists in the rapid extraction from 
tho soil of a country of the most easily obtained 
portion of its wealth by a process which exhausts the 
soil, and consigns to waste all the other resources of 
tlie country where it is practised. To state the case 
with more particularity — by proscribing manufac- 
tures and commerce, and confining agi'iculture within 
narrow bounds, ])y rendering inipossil)le the rise of 
a fvvQ peasantry, by checking the growth of popu- 
Ijition — in a word, by blasting every germ from 
which national well-being and general civilization 
may spring — at this cost, with the further condi- 
tion of encroaching, thi'ough a reckless system of 
culture, on the stores designed by Providence for 
future generations, sla\ ery may undoubtedly for a 



CONSTITUTION OF SLAVE SOCIETY. 85 

time be made conducive to the pecuniary gain of 
the class who keep slaves. Such is the net result 
of advantage which .slavery, as an economic system, 
is capable of yielding. To the full credit of all 
that is involved in this admission the institution is 
fairly entitled. 

The constitution of a slave society, it has been 
seen, is sufficiently simple : it resolves itself into three 
classes, broadly distinguished from each other, and 
connected by no common interest — the slaves on 
whom devolves all the regular industry, the slave- 
holders who reap all its fruits, and an idle and 
lawless rabble who live disjDersed over vast plains 
in a condition little removed from absolute barbar- 
ism. These form the constituent elements of the 
society of which the Slave Power is the political 
representative. What the nature of that power is, 
now that we have ascertained the elements out of 
which it springs, we can have little difficulty in 
determining. When the whole wealth of a country 
is monopolized by a thirtieth part of its population, 
while the remainder are by physical or moral causes 
consigned to compulsory poverty and ignorance ; 
when the persons composing the privileged thirtieth 
part are all engaged in pursuits of the same kind, 
subject to the influence of the same moral ideas, 
and identified with the maintenance of the same 
species of property — in a society so constituted, 



86 CONSTlTlTloN OF SLAVE SOCIETY 

|M.litical pnwiT will ul" iR-ccssity reside M'itli those 
ill whom tciitre the elements of such power— wealth, 
knowledge, and intelligence — the small minority for 
whose exclusive benefit the system exists. The 
politv of such a soeiety must thus, in essence, be 
an oligarchy, whatever be the particular mould in 
which it is cast. Nor is this all. A society so 
organized tends to develop with a peculiar intensity 
the distinctive vices of an oligarchy. In a country 
of free labour, whatever be the form of government 
to which it is subject, the pursuits of industry are 
various. Various interests, therefore, take root, and 
parties grow up which, regarding national questions 
from various points of view, become centres of oppo- 
sition, whether against the undue pretensions of any 
one of their number, or against those of a single 
ruler. It is not so in the Slave States. That variety 
of interests which springs from the individual im- 
pulses of a free population does not here exist. The 
elements ol" a political opposition are wanting. 
There i> but <»nc pai-ty,* but one set of men who are 

* There is one exception to this statement. Between the breed- 
in;,' ami working states a dillerence of interest has been developed 
which ha-s rosultod in the formation of two jjarties within the Slave 
suites. But (iis will horcal'tt-r he sliown) this dillVrence of interest 
hivs never been sufficient to produce any serious discordance among 
tint politicians of the South. The sympathies which bind the 
breeding and working states together are f;ir stronger than any 
interosts which separate them ; and in tho main they have alwaj's 

ted as a single party. 



ESSENTIALLY OLIGARCHICAL. 87 

capable of acting together in political concert. The 
rest is an undisciplined rabble. From this state of 
things the only possible result is that which we 
find — a despotism, in the last degree unscrupulous 
and impatient of control, wielded by the wealthy 
few. Now it is this power which for half a century 
has exercised paramount sway in the councils of the 
Union. It is the men educated in the ideas of this 
system who have filled the highest offices of State, 
who have been the representatives of their country 
to European Powers, and who, by their position and 
the influence they have commanded, have given the 
tone to the public morality of the nation. The de- 
terioration of the institutions and of the character 
of the people of the United States is now very com- 
monly taken for granted in this country. The fact 
may be so ; so far as the South is concerned I be- 
lieve, and shall endeavour to prove, that it unques- 
tionably is so. But it is very important that we 
should understand to what cause this deterioration 
is due. There are writers who would have us be- 
lieve that it is but the natural result of democratic 
institutions working through the Federal system ; 
and for this view a plausible case may be easily 
made out. Democratic institutions have admittedly 
exercised a powerful influence in forming the Ame- 
rican character and in determining the present condi- 
tion of the United States. It is only necessary, 



88 nAXKllL INTLUENXE OF SLAVE OLIGARCHY 

thiTrtni'c, to Itriii;: Tlii> point strongly into view in 
tlosf connexion with ;ill that is most objectionable 
in tin- i»ul»li«- morals, and all that is most (liscredi- 
taldc in the wwux history, of the Union, keeping 
ciirulully out of sight the existence in the political 
system of institutions tlii' reverse of democratic, and 
avoiding all reference to the cardinal fact, that it is 
these and not the democratic institutions of the 
North wliich, almost since its establishment, have 
been the paramount pcnver in the Union, — to leave 
tile impression that everything that has been made 
matter of reproach in transatlantic politics has 
been due to democracy and to democracy alone, -f 
According to this method of theorising, the abstrac- 
tion of Florida, the annexation of Texas, the filibus- 
tering expeditions of Lopez and AValker, the attempts 
noon Cuba, have no connexion with the a2:":ressive 
ambition of the Slave Power : they are onl}' proofs 
of the rapacious spirit of democracy armed with the 
strength of a powerful federation. It is, indeed, 
quite astounding to observe the boldness with which 
this argument is s(mietimes handled. One would 
have thought that an advocate of the Southern 
cause would at least have shown some hesitancy in 
albnling to an attack made b\- a Southern bully, on 
the ilo(tr of the Senate lioiise. Upon one oi" tile most 
ace(»inpli>he<l >l;ite>nieii nf the North. Iliat attack 
\\as in ;dl ciremiistances plaiiih- hrandcfl uitli the 



FALSELY CHARGED ON DEMOCRACY. 89 

marks of its origin. It was committed by a slave- 
holder, acting as the champion of slaveholders, in 
revenge for an anti-slavery speech ; it was charac- 
terized by that mingled treachery, cowardice, and 
brutality which are only to be found in societies 
reared in the presence of slavery ; it was adopted 
and applauded by the whole people of the South, 
recognized by testimonials, and rewarded by gifts: 
yet this act is deliberately put forward as an exam- 
ple of the " irreverence for justice " which is pro- 
duced by democratic institutions, and is employed 
to prepossess our minds in favour of the Southern 
cause I* The present writer is far from being an 

* Spence's American Union, pp. 6^-6, 74-5. Mr. Spence states 
the act, omitting to mention the occasion, or whether the actors were 
Northern or Southern men ; but in the same paragraph, having al- 
luded to the case of Mr. Sickles, he adds that the man " who com- 
mitted a deliberate and relentless murder in open day .... 
is now a Brigadier- General in the Northern army." Is the mention 
of the criminal's origin in one case, and its suppression in the other, 
an accident 1 

In a later portion of the vokime a still more striking instance 
occurs of Mr. Spence's candour. "A French writer, Raymond, 
comments upon the singular fact that whilst between England and 
France but one serious quarrel has occurred siuce 1815, there have 
arisen during the same period twelve or thirteen most serious diffi- 
culties between the United States and ourselves. . . . We 
have had minor wars with China, conducted on the principle of 
throwing open to the world every advantage obtained by ourselves. 
On one occasion we invited the co-operation of the American Go- 
vernment, but in vain, and every opportunity was seized to thwart 



90 EACH lM{IN(irLK TO BE TESTED 

atliiiiivr ut' dciiiucracy :is it exists in the Xortlicrii 
States; but, wliatcvcr hv xhv iiRrits or dL'im.'i'its of 
that torin of ;j:oVL'riiiiuiit, it is desirable tliat it 

i»ur policy. Even tl»e Chinese know llu-y may expect to see the 
flag of aiiy other power in union with our own, but never that of 
America. Thei-e wii.'*, indeed, a moment when our men were falling 
under a nuudi-ruus lire, that for once an American was heard to de- 
clare that * blood wiu-^ thicker than wuttr.' It would ill become us 
to forget the noble conduct of Commodore Tatiudl on that occasion. 
He was a Soutlierner,and Is now a 'traitor and a rcbel'" (pix 294-296). 
Let the reader note the art with which the facts are here manipulated. 
AVe are asked to ivfu.se our .symjcitliics to the North, liccause, .since 
1S15 we have had frecpu-nt ditlicultics with the Ignited States 
(which the North now represents) — the circumstance that durmg al- 
most the whole of this jjcriod the Government of the United States 
was in the luuids of Southern statesmen being suppressed as of no 
importance in the case. On the other hand, a single instance in 
which a Southerner has performed an act of a friendly nature towards 
Great Britiiin is brought prominently forward as a gi-ound for giving 
our sympathies to the South. It is evident that the contrast thus 
instituted between the friendly conduct of Commodore Tatnall— a 
Southerner — and the hostile spirit which had just been commented 
on a-s manift'stcd by the Government of the Union, can, taken in 
connexion with the general tenor of the argument, have no other 
effect than to leave readers unaiipiainted with the facts (a rather 
numerous tla.ss unfortunately in this country) under the impression 
that, OS the friendly demonstration was the act of a Southerner, so 
the liostile manifestations proceedcid from the North. The sjurit 
e\inced in tins pa.ssage, which is merely a specimen of the main ar- 
gument of the work IVom which it is taken, is nil the more romark- 
ablo in a writer who in his preface bespeaks the confidence of his 
n;uders on the ground that " pei-sonal con.siderations and valued 
frii-ndships incline him withojit exception to the Northern side," 
which lie has been comi»elled relucUnitly to abandon by "convic- 
tions forced upon the mind )>\ faits Jiiiii reasonings." 



BY ITS ruorEK riiuiTs. 91 

should be judged by its own fruits, and not by the 
fruits of a system which is its oj^posite — a system 
which, in phice of conferring political power on the 
majority of tlie people, gives it, free from all con- 
trol, to a small minority Avhose interests are not 
only not identical with those of their fellow-citizens, 
but are directly opposed to theirs. Democracy, 
beyond all doubt, has been a powerful influence in 
moulding the character of the Americans in the 
Northern States ; it would be absurd to deny this ; 
but it would be no less absurd, and would be still 
more flagrantly in defiance of the most conspicuous 
facts of the case, to deny that that character has 
also been profoundly modified by the influence of 
Southern institutions, acting through the Federal 
government, in the persons of Southern men — insti- 
tutions which I repeat are the reverse of democratic. 
It is the Slave Power, and not the democracy of the 
North, which for half a century has been dominant 
in the Union. It is this Power which has directed 
its public policy ; which has guided its intercourse 
Avith foreign nations, conducted its diplomacy, regu- 
lated its internal legislation, and which, by working 
on its hopes and fears through the unscrupulous 
use of an enormous patronage, has exercised an un- 
bounded sway over the minds of the whole people. 
Whatever other agencies may have contributed to 
shape the course of American politics, this at least 



92 CllAHAlTKK OF TIIK SLAVE rOWEK. 

Ikis bcL-ii a loading' oiio; and wliatevcr 1)l' the politi- 
< al tliaractrr ul" tliu citizens, inr that tliaractcr tliis 
system must he lichl in a )»rinrij)al degree respon- 

Sihh'. 

lo sum uj) in a few words the general results of 
tlie fore'^oiu'X discussion: — the Slave Power — that 
]»t»wer which has long held the helm of government 
in tlie Union — is, under the forms of a democracy, 
an uncontrolled despotism, wielded by a compact 
oligarcli}'. Supported by the labour of foui" niil- 
li(»ns dt" shives, it rules a population of five millions 
«it whites — a population ignorant, averse to syste- 
matic industry, and prone to irregular adventure. 
A system of society more formidable f(jr e\ il, more 
menacing to the best interests of the liuman race, it 
is difficult to conceive. 



93 



CHAPTER IV. 

TENDENCIES OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

In what direction is slave society, as presented in the 
States of the Confederation, moving ? Towards a 
higher civilization, or towards barbarism ? On 
the answer to this question, I apprehend, will prin- 
cipally depend the degree of indulgence which we 
may be disposed to extend to modern slavery. If 
the form of society springing from the institution 
be found to be but an incident of a certain stao-e of 
human progress, a shell of barbarism from which 
nations gradually work themselves free with the 
development of their moral and material life, an evil 
which will disappear by a spontaneous process — we 
shall probably be disposed to regard the institution 
with considerable leniency, to deprecate schemes 
for its overthrow, and, perhaps, in certain cases, 
even to look with favour on j)lans for its extension. 
If, on the other hand, it appear that the system 
is essentially retrograde in its character, contrived 
so as to arrest and throw back the development, 
moral and material, of the peo2:)le on wdiom it is 
imposed, and to hold them in a condition of per- 
manent barbarism, the sentiments with which we 



94 IN WHAT DIRECTION MOVING? 

sliall rr^Mi'd it, :i>^ wtU :i^ "ur policy towards tl»o 
(•(.miitrii'S whirli upluikl it, will lu- of a very diftV-rriit 
kind. 

riius, to '/\\v the |»oiiiT a jtractical illustration, the 
mod.' of draliiiLr with ^rcxico is at present a most 
perplexint; question i'or European statesmen. Tn 
tlie present condition (»f that conntry — the prey of 
contending factions, whose alternate excesses pre- 
vent tlie growtli ofsteadv industry, deter European 
settlement, and dtprixc the woi'ld of the heuelit 
which its <:reat natural resources are ealeulati'd to 
confer — almost anv chancre' would he a cliange for 
the better. The establishment of an effective go- 
vernment of some kind, of a power capable of pre- 
serving the lives and properties of the inhabitants, 
is a matter of prime necessity, without wliieli tlie 
lirst foundations of improvement cannot be laiil. 
Now the most obvious method of effecting this pur- 
pose woidd be to hautl the country over to the 
Southern ronfederation ;* and this arrangement 
would eiitirclv fall in with the views of the leaders 
of that bodv. r»ut Mexico, whatever be the vices 
of its political system, is a state in which labour 
is free ; whcrcas, if annexed to the dominions of 
the Southern Confederation, it would at once be- 

• Tliifl is not a mere fanciful liypotbcsis. The plan has been 
8Uggf'stc<l in tcmw sulliciently unaiiil)ignous hy the Thms. Spc a 
K-adiug article of the Times, 3i8t July, iS(^)i. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION. 95 

come the abode of slaver^'. Nevertheless it can 
scarcelv be doubted that this annexation would, in 
the first instance, be attended with some advantages. 
For the chieftains whose combined weakness and 
^-iolence now keep the country in constant affitation 
there would be substituted a strong government — a 
government incompatible, indeed, with freedom of 
speech or writing, or with security of life or pro- 
perty for such as ventured to dissent from its prin- 
ciples, but still able to preserve order after a certain 
fashion — able to protect slaveholders in the enjoy- 
ment of their property, and to prevent revolutions. 
Cnder such a government productive industry might 
be expected to start forward with vigour ; those 
products which are capable of being raised with 
profit by slave labour, and amongst these cotton, 
would be multiplied and cheapened in the markets 
of the world ; the position of Mexican bondholders 
would be improved. Such would probably be the 
immediate effect of the annexation. But what 
would be its permanent consequences ? To answer 
this question we must resolve the problem with 
which we started. We mast determine the direc- 
tion in which society in the Southern States is 
moving. If the " peculiar institution " be essenti- 
ally temporary and provisional in its character, 
if it be not incompatible with the ultimate eman- 
cipation of those on whom it Is imposed, as well 



q6 PRESl'MPTinx IN FAVOUR OF :siODFI{N' SLAVFKY 

as with tlit^ Continued j)r<>;_'Tcss of the people among 
ulioni it is estaWislicMl, then tin' permanent as well 
as immediate, eonsequences of the extension of 
Southern rule over Mexico, notwithstanding that it 
would be attended with the introduction of slavery 
into a country where labour at present is free, 
might perhaps be thought to be, on the whole, 
advantageous. liuT, if the institution of the South 
be a pt-rnianent tiiraldom, and if the form of society 
to whirh it gives birth l)e of a kind effectually to 
arrest the growth of the whole people among whom 
it is planted — under these circumstances, to hand 
over Mexico to the Southern Confederacy would l)e 
nothing less than, for the sake of certain material 
advantages to be reaped by the present generation, 
to seal the doom of a noble country — a country 
whicli, under better auspices, might become a }>er- 
ennial source of benefits for all future time, and a 
new centre of American civilization. 

It is therefore of extreme importance to ascer- 
tain the tendencies of these slave societies, and what 
j)rospects they hold out of future advancement to 
tl»e people who compose them. And, in approach- 
ing this question, it at once occurs that slavery is 
not a new fact in the woi'ld. It prevailed, as we 
kiii»u', among all the nations of antiquity, of whom, 
nevertheless, some displayed great aptitude for intrl- 
l«,'Ctual cultivation, and attained a liigli degree of 



DERIVED FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF ANCIENT. 97 

general civilization. It formed, at one time, an in- 
gredient in the social S3^stem of all modern states, 
which, however, did not find it incompatible with a 
progressive career, and the last traces of slavery, in 
the mitigated form of serfdom, are but now disap- 
pearing from Europe. If slavery was not inconsist- 
ent with progressive civilization among the ancient 
Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews — if mediaeval Europe 
contrived to work itself free from this vicious ele- 
ment of its social constitution, it will perhaps be 
asked why need we despair of progress for the 
vStates of the Confederation. Why are we to suppose 
that they, under the influence of the same causes 
which operated in ancient and mediaeval society, 
should not, in the same gradual fashion, emancipate 
their slaves, and ultimately reach the same level of 
general cultivation which those societies attained ? 
Nay, it is possible there may be those who, while 
holding slavery to be, as a permanent status^ nox- 
ious, may nevertheless regard it as not incapable of 
performing a useful function towards people in a 
certain stage of their development, as a kind of 
probationary discipline suitable to their preparation 
for a higher form of civilized existence, and may 
consider its maintenance in the Southern States at 
present as defensible upon this ground. Some such 
notion, it seems to me, is at the bottom of much of 
the indulgence, and even favour, with whicli the 



yS THK ANALOGY FAILS IN TUKT.r. I'OINTS. 

cause* nt" tIh' Soiitli has coiik- to be regartkHl in this 
couiitrv ;* and it is. tluTcfore, worth wliile to coii- 
biiKt h<»\v far tliis vii-w <>1' iiKxhrn sla\rry is wcll- 

fniiinhd. 

And here it may be advaiitajreous to bear in mind 
the caiitioM of l>e TocqiU'villc. " When I compare 
tlic (Irt'ck aiul Koman repul>lics with these American 
States ; when 1 rcmemljcr all the attempts which are 
made to judL^r tin- modern republics by the assist, 
anec of those of antiquity, and to infer Aviiat will 
JKipjieii in (jur time tVom wliiit took place two 
thousand years a<,^o, I am tem[)ted to burn my 
l)Ooks, in order to apply none but novel ideas to so 
novel a condition of society." The truth is, be- 
twcen slavery, as it existed in classical and media'val 
times and the system which now erects itself defi- 
anth in North America, there exist the most deep 
reachinir di>tinctions. 1 will mention three, which, 
as it seems to me, ai-e in themselves sufficient to 

" " .Slavery," says a writer iii the Sa(U7dai/ Jieviexv, " appears to 
lie away, or at least its most horrible mcideuts disappear in pro- 
portion as the community in which it exists becomes older, more 
wealthy, and theri'fore more dense. . . . The best chance for 
the alleviation of the slave's contlition lies in the increased wealtli 
ind prosperity of the Soutli. In other words, its freedom to deve- 
lop its own resources, without foreign intervention, is the slave's 
best hope. And it is agreed on all hands that a modified and alle- 
viateil slavery is a transitional sUtto in which it is very difficult for 
the slaveowners to halt long." — ^Vor. 2ud, j86i. 



DIFFERENCE OF RACE AND COLOUR. 99 

take the case of inodern slavery entirely out ol the 
scope of the analogies furnished by the former expe- 
rience of mankind. 

In the first place, there is the vital fact — the differ- 
ence in race and colour between modern slaves and 
their masters — a difference which had nothing cor- 
responding to it in the slavery of former times. The 
consequences flowing from this fact cannot be better 
stated than in the language of De Tocqueville. "The 
slave, amongst the ancients, belonged to the same 
race as his master, and he was often the superior of 
the two in education and instruction. Freedom 
was the only distinction between them ; and when 
freedom was conferred, they were easily confounded 

together." " The greatest difficulty of 

antiquity [in the way of abolition] was that of alter- 
ing the law ; amongst the moderns it is that of alter- 
ing the manners ; and, as far as we are concerned, 
the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients 
left off. This arises from the circumstance that, 
amongst the moderns, the abstract and transient 
fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and 
permanent fact of colour. The tradition of slavery 
dishonours the race, and the peculiarity of the race 
perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African 
has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the 
New World ; whence it must be inferred, that all 
the blacks who are now to be found in that hemi- 



lOO ITS EFFECTS. 

>l»lifiT art- citlicr slavt-s ni- iVccdiiuii. 'I'lius tlie 
lu'LTo traiisinits tlie external mark n\' his i«iii<)ininy 
to all his tlescendaiits. 'i'lit- law may t-aiirrl scrvi- 
tiulf, <i()(l alone can ohlitcrate its hraiid. 

" 'i"hf modern slave diU'crs from his master not 
t)nly in his condition, hut in his ori^'-in. You may 
set the ne^rro free, but you cannot make him otliei-- 
\\i>e than an alien to the European. Nor is this all: 
we searceK" aekimwledi^e the common features of 
maid<ind in this child of dehasenieiit whom slavery 
has hrouuht amongst us. J I is physio^jnomy is to 
our eyes hideous, his understandin<!; weak, his tastes 
low ; and we are almost inclined to look upon him 
as a bein'j; intermediate between man and the brutes. 
The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, 
have three prejudices to contend against, which are 
less easy to attack, and far less easy to conquer, than 
the mere fact of servitude : the prejudice of the mas- 
ter, the j»rejudice of race, and tin- j)rejudice of 
colour."* 

l>ut, secondly, the immense development of inter- 
national (M^mmeree in modern times furnishes an- 
other distinction between ancient and modern sla- 
very, whi<h very intimately affects the question we 
are discussing. 

So long as each nation was in the main de])endt'nt 
on the industry oi' its own members for the supply 

• Deniocracy in AiTierica, vol. ii. pp. 213-217. 



GROWTH OF MODERN COMMERCE. lOI 

of its wants, it is obvious that a strong motive 
would be present for the cultivation of the intelli- 
gence, and the improvement of the condition, of the 
industrial classes. The commodities which minister 
to comfort and luxury cannot be produced without 
skilled labour, and skilled labour implies a certain 
degree of mental cultivation, and a certain progress 
in social respect. To attain success in the more 
difficult industrial arts, the workman must respect 
liis vocation, must take an interest in his task ; 
habits of care, deliberation, forethought must be 
acquired ; in short, there must be such a general 
awakening of the faculties, intellectual and moral, 
as, by leading men to a knowledge of their rights 
and of the means of enforcing them, inevitaljly 
disqualifies them for the servile condition. Now, 
this was the position in which the slave master 
found himself in the ancient world. He was, in the 
main, dependent on the skill of his slaves for ob- 
taining v/hatever he required. He was, therefore, 
naturally led to cultivate the faculties of his slaves, 
and by consequence to promote generally the im- 
provement of their condition. His progress in the 
enjoyment of the material advantages of civilization 
depended directly upon their progress in knowledge 
and social consideration. Accordingly the education 
of slaves was never prohibited in the ancient Roman 
world, and, in point of fact, no small number of 



I02 ITS KFFECTS 

lliciii tnjoxud tlic athaiitage ol' a lii^^li miltivatioii. 
*• Till' yoiitlis (jf promising genius," says Gibbon, 
'• \vt'!V instructed in the arts and sciences, and 
almost everv jH'olessinn. librral and nieclianical, 
ini;jlit lu' loiiiid in the Imuxliold of an opulent sena- 
tor." Tile industrial necessities ot" li(Unan society 
(and the same was true of society in the middle 
ages) in this wav ])rovided for the education of at 
least a large i»roj)ortion of the slave population ; 
and education, acc(jm})anied as it was by a general 
elevation nl' their condition, led, by a natural and 
almost incN itablc tendency, to emancipation.* 

r»ut in the [»osition of slavery in North America 
tlure is nothing which corresponds to this. ()wing 
to the vast d('velo[)m('nt in modern times , of interna- 

• " Tlie only lair unalogy," says Mr. Congi-eve, " to the slavery 
i»f (.Ireeco aiul Ivoiue is to be found in that \vhich is still prevalent 
in Asiii, wht-n- the evils of West Indian or American slavery are 
wholly unknown, and th«> relation of master and slave is accepted 
Ity lx)th, as being, in Aristotle's words, at once light and for the 
fommon interest." On the other hand, " if we seek for an analogy 
in ancient times to njodcrn slavery," we may find one in " the 
latifundia of the Roman nobles, or what may be termed the corn 
plantations of Sicily. The population there wa-s slave, and there 
%vaa no check to the misuse of their power by the agents or mastei's 
who superintended them. And there was no intercourse, no sense 
of connexion to softt;n the iidieivnt hardships of their condition. 
They rev<dt»Ml once and again, and there was danger lest their 
revolt sh(nd<l spread, lest thmughout the Roman world the slave 
]>opulatii)n should feel that it ha<l ii <(>mmi>n cause." — ( "ciugreve's 
I'fi/idi's of Arittotlr, p. 496. 



IN AUGMENTING THE RESOURCES OF SLAVERY. 1 03 

tional trade, modern slaveholders are rendered inde- 
pendent of the skill, and therefore of the intelligence 
and social improvement, of their slave population. 
They have only need to find a commodity which is 
capable of being produced by crude labour, and at 
the same time in large demand in the markets of the 
world ; and by applying their slaves to the produc- 
tion of this, they may, through an exchange with 
other countries, make it the means of procuring for 
themselves whatever they require. Cotton and sugar, 
for example, are commodities which fulfil these condi- 
tions : they may be raised by crude labour, and they 
are in lar^e demand throus^hout the world. Accord- 
ingly Alabama and Louisiana have only to employ 
their slaves in raising these products, and they are 
enabled through their means to command the in- 
dustrial resources of all commercial nations. AVith- 
out cultivatinof one of the arts or refinements of 
civilization, they can possess themselves of all its 
material comforts. AYithout employing an artizan, 
a manufacturer, a skilled labourer of any sort, they 
can secure the products of the highest manufac- 
turing and mechanical skill. " In one way or 
other," says Mr. Helper,* putting the point strik- 
ingly, though from the protectionist point of view, 
"we are more or less subservient to the North 
every day of our lives. In infancy we are swad- 

* Impending Crisis, p. 27. 



I04 KNIIANCED VALUE OF CRUDE LABOUR 

(lk»l in Xorthern iiiusliii : in oliiklliood we are 
liuiuoured with Nnrtlurii gew-gaws ; in youth we 
are instriietcd out (d" Xorthern books ; at the age 
of inatiirit\- we sow oiir ' wikl oats' on Northern 
soil ; ... in the decline of life we remedy 
our eye-sight with Xorthern spectacles, and support 
<»iir intinnitics with Xorthern canes ; in old age we 
are drugged with Xorthern physic ; and, finally, 
when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in 
Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne 
to the irrave in a Xorthern carriajre, entombed witli 
a Xorthern spade, and memorized with a Xorthern 
slab !" Vet all these products of manufacturing 
and mechanical skill, the States which consume 
tliem are able to command through the medium 
of a conmiodity which is raised by the crudest ser- 
vile labour. The resources of slavery have in this 
way btrn indefinitely increased in modern times. 
Its eapabilities have been multiplied, and, without 
submitting to the slightest alleviation of its harsh- 
est features, it can adaj)t itself to all tlie varying 
wants of human society. 

But the consequences of the increased capabilities 
of slavery do not end in merely negative results. 
^\ hatever inducements may exist for cultivating 
tlif intelligence of slaves, there are alwavs verv 
weighty ivasoiis ftijahi.st i-onhrring tiiis boon. 
Arconlinglv, the forni«r not coming into jtlav in 



TENDS TO PERPETUATE SERVITUDE. I05 

modern times, the latter have operated with unre- 
stricted force. The merest rudiments of learning 
are now rigorously proscribed for the negroes in 
the Slave States of North America ; and the 
prohibition is enforced, both in the persons of the 
teachers and the taught, with penalties of extraordi- 
nary severity.* " The only means by whicli the 

* Tlie followmg are some extracts from the laws of some of the 
Southern States upon this subject. In South Carolina an act was 
passed in 1834, which pro\'ides as follows : — "If any person shall 
hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or shall aid in assisting 
any slave to read or write, or cause or procure any slave to be 
taught to read or write, such person, if a free white person, upon 
conviction thereof, shall for every such offence against this act be 
fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, and imprisoned not more 
than six months ; or if a free person of colour, shall be wliipped 
not exceeding fifty lashes, and fined not exceeding fifty dollars ; 
and if a slave, shall be whipped, not exceeding fifty lashes ; and 
if any free person of colour or a slave shall keep any such school 
or other place of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of 
colour to read or write, such person shall be liable to the same fine, 
imprisonment and corporal punishment as are by this act imposed 
and inflicted on free persons of colour and slaves for teaching slaves 
to read or write." In Virginia, according to the code of 1849, 
" every assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in read- 
ing or writing shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may 
issue his warrant to any ofi&cer or other person, requiring him to 
enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro 
therein ; and he or any other justice may order such negro to be 
punished with stripes." " K a white person assemble with negroes 
for the purpose of instructing them to read or write, he shall be 
confined to jail not exceeding six months, and fined not exceeding 
one hundred dollars." In Georgia in 1829 it was enacted: — "If 
any slave, negro, or free person of colour, or any white person, shall 



Io6 MODEUN SLAVi:i{V 

aiific-nt^ liiaiiitaiiK'J :5lavc'ry were letters and death ; 
tlie Americans of the South of the Union have dis- 
(•overed more intelKetinil securities for tlie duration 
of their power. Tlie}' liave em})h)yed thcii- despot- 
ism and their violence ajx^inst tlie hiiiiiau mind. In 
aiitiiiuitw precautions were taken to prevent the 
shive from breaking his chains ; at the present day 
measures are a(h)pted to deprive liim even of the 
<lesire of freechmi. ihe ancients kept the bodies of 
their slaves in bondarre, but they placed no restraint 
ujton the mind and no check u})ou education : and 
they acted consistenth' with their established prin- 
eiple, since a natui"al ti rminatiitii of slavery tlieii 
existed, and one <hiy or other the slave might be set 
fn-e, and Ijecome the equal of his master. I'ut tlie 
.\mericans of the South, who do not admit that the 
negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, 

tvach any otiior slave, negro, or free person of colour to road or 
write either written or printed characters, the said free person of 
colour or slave shall In- jtiinished hy fine and whipping, or fine or 
whip]»ing, at tlie discretion of the court ; and if a white person so 
olTending, he, she, or they shall be punished with fine not exceeding 
five hundred dollars, and imprisonment in the common jail, at the 
discretion of the court." By the act of Assembly of Louisiana, 
jiassed in Mari-h, 18.50, " all persons who shall teach or cause to be 
taught any slave in this state to read or write shall, on conviction 
thereof, &c., be iniprL«ioned not less than one or more than twelve 
months." And in Alabamii, " any person who shall attempt to 
l«'nch any free person of colour or slave to spell, read or write, shall 
nprdi conviction, (fee, l»c limd in a sum ni-l less than 250 dollars 
nor more limn ijoo dollars."' 



EXTENDS ITS DESPOTISM TO THE MIND. lo; 

have forbidden them to be taught to read and write 
under severe penalties ; and as they Avill not raise 
them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as 
possible to that of the brutes."* The education of 
slaves amongst the ancients prepared the way for 
emancipation. The prohibition of the education of 
slaves amongst the moderns has naturally suggested 
the policy of holding them in perpetual bondage ; 
and laws and manners have conspired to interpose 
obstacles all but insuperable in the Avay of manu- 
mission. Thus the modern slave is cut off from 
the one great alleviation of his lot — the hope of 
freedom, f 

But there is yet another distinction between the 
slavery of modern times and slavery as it was known 
among the progressive communities of former ages, 
which deserves to be noticed — I mean the place 
which the slave trade fills in the organization of 

* Democracy in America, vol. ii. p. 246, 247. 

t " In Aristotle himself we find snggested one of the greatest 
alleviations of which slavery is susceptible. There ought to be 
held out to the slave, he says, the hope of Hberty as the reward of 
liis service. Thus, by a gradual infiltration, the slave population 
might pass into the free. It did so at Rome through the interme- 
diate stage of freedom ; and the position of freed men at Eome in 
the later republic, and even more under the empire, was sxich that 
the prospect of reaching it must have been a great inducement to 
the slaves to acquiesce in their present lot ; and it would be an 
inducement which would have most weight with the highest class 
of slaves." — Congreve's Politics of Aristotle, p. 497. 



lo8 THE SLAVE TRADE. 

iii'mIi Til >l;i\rr\-. TradiiiL; in ^laws was tloiihtless 
pi'actisecl 1»\ tin- aiicie'iits, and with suliicicnt bar- 
l>arit\. I'»nt \\r look in \ain in the records of 
anti(jnit\ lor a traliir which in extent, in systematic 
cliaracter. and. ahove all, in tin- iiinction discliarged 
1)\ it as the cttuinion snj)j»ort oi' countries breeding 
and consumin*:: human hibour, which can wdth jus- 
tice be repirded as the analogue of the modern 
slave trade — ol" that organized system wdiieh has 
been carried on l)etween Guinea and the coast of 
America, oi- ot" that between \ irginia, the (Guinea 
of the New W'oi-ld, and the slave-consunung States 
of the South and West.* This peculiar outgr(Jwth 
of the institution ibrnis a cliaracteristic feature in 
modern slavery, and its consequences, in connexion 
with the (juestion which we are considering, are of a 
vei'N' important kind. 

'i1ie cll'ects of the sla\e-trade in aggravating . a 
hundredinld all the t'\ils of Servitude liave often 
been described. African shivediunts, the horrors 
1)1" the middle j)assage, the miser\' of unhaj>j)y bar- 
liarians, aecustonu-d to the A\ild IVei'dom ol their 
native land, caught up and hurried awav to a remote 
continent, and compelled to toil for the rest t)f their 

* M. Durcau de la Malle, iu a critical fxamiuatioii of tlie loose 
.iinl rhetorical stat^monts of ancifiit authoi-s ami their nuHlern 
• ritirs, ha.s (lispellfil umch iniscoiu'cjition rosjM'ctiiig the o.vlenl df 
till' aiuiriit coimiMicc in slaves. Sec his Economit J'oli'itjiif (l<s 
JixiiKiins, toiii. i., jip. 246-2^)9. 



ITS TWOFOLD FUNCTION IN THE MODERN SYSTEM. 109 

days under the whip of an alien taskmaster, have 
often been dwelt upon. So, also, the story of human 
beings, reared amid the softening influences of civil- 
ization, who, so soon as they arrive at the maturity 
of their physical power, are, like so many cattle, 
shipped off to a distant region of tropieal heat there 
to be worked to death — of husbands separated from 
their wives, children from their parents, brothers 
and sisters from each other — of exposure on the 
auction-block and transfer to new masters and 
strange climates — all this happening not to heathen 
savages, but to men and women capable of affection 
and friendship, and sensible to moral suffering, — 
this story, I say, is familiar to us all ; but my object 
at present is to direct attention, not so much to 
the barbarous inhumanity of the slave-trade, whe- 
ther foreign or domestic, as to what has not been 
so often noticed — the mode in which it operates in 
giving increased coherence and stability to the sys- 
tem of which it is a part. Now, it does this in two 
ways, by bringing the resources of salubrious coun- 
tries to supplement the waste of human life in 
torrid regions ; and, secondly, by providing a new 
source of profit for slaveholders, which enables 
them to keep up the institution when, in the ab- 
sence of this resource, it would become unprofitable 
and disappear. 

While countries depended for the supply of ser- 



I lO rilK SLAVE TKAI^E. 

\iU' lali<iui- iipnii tlir iiatiii'al iiuTcase <»t" their own 
sla\e |Mi])iilatinii, tlicre existi-d an ul»\ious limit to 
(he raiiL^' of till" system and to tlir hartlsliips it "was 
caj)al>lt' (>r intlic'tinpf. A\'liirt' tlu- cliaracteT of" tlie 
climate, f»r the nature <•! the work to l)e done, was 
such as to A*e seriously prejudicial to human life, 
slavery, it' recruited froui within, could onlv exist 
tlirou;j:h ^a'l-at attention ^dven to the [)hy.sical re- 
<juirements of the slaves. AVitliout this, it must 
liave beeomc extinct hy the destruction of its victims. 
I hit, a commerce in slaves once established, these 
natural restraints upon the fullest development of 
slaver}' are effeetiuilly removed. The rice-grounds 
of Georgia or the swamps of the Mississippi may be 
fatally injurious to the human constitution ; but the 
waste of human life, which the cultivation of these 
districts necessitates, is not so great that it cannot be 
repaired from the teeming preserves of A'irginia and 
Kentucky. Considerations of economy, moreover, 
whi<h. under a natural system, afford some security 
for humane treatment hv identifying the master's in- 
terest ^^ith the slave's preservation, when once trading 
in slaves is practiced, ])ecome reasons for racking to 
the uttermost the toil of the slave ; for, when his place 
can at once be supplied from foreign i)reserves, the 
duration of his life becomes a matter of less moment 
than its producti\"eness wliiK' it lasts. It is accord- 
ingly a maxim of slave management, in slave-imporf- 



IN RELATION TO THE CONSUMING COUNTRIES. I I I 

ing countries, tliat the most effective economy is that 
which takes out of the human chattel in the shortest 
space of time the utmost amount of exertion it is ca- 
pable of putting forth. " It is in tropical culture, 
where annual profits often equal the whole capital of 
plantations, that negro life is most recklessly sacri- 
ficed. It is the agriculture of the West Indies, which 
has been for centuries prolific of fabulous wealth, 
which has engulfed millions of the African race. It 
is in Cuba, at this day, whose revenues are reckoned 
by millions, and whose planters are princes, that we 
see, in the servile class, the coarsest fare, the most ex- 
hausting and unremitting toil, and even the absolute 
destruction of a portion of its numbers every year, 
by the slow torture of overwork and insufiicient sleep 
and rest. In our own country, is it in Maryland and 
Virginia that slaves fare the worst, or is it in the 
sugar regions of Louisiana and Texas, where the 
scale of profits suggests the calculation of using 
them up in a given number of years as a matter of 
economy ? Is it not notorious, that the States upon 
the Gulf of Mexico, in Avhich forced labour is most 
productive to those who own it, are made use of by 
the northern slave States, not merely as markets in 
which to dispose of slaves as a matter of profit, but 
as a Botany Bay, furnished to their hands, to which 
their slaves are sent by way of punishment ?"* The 

* Progress of Slavery, pp. 132, i^^. 



I I 2 THE SLAVF TRADE. 

sl:iv«'-tr;ul(' tlms affords tin- nu-ans of extendiiifr tlio 
iiistifiititiii ill its liarshcst tnnii to countries in wliidi, 
without this su])j)()rt, it tiilitr couhl not liave been 
pcrniancntlx- niaiiitaiiicd at all, or only in a very 
initi<rated form, sustaininji the waste of human life 
in tro])iral rep:ions from the liardier or liealthier 
jtopulations of ])arl)arous countries and of temperate 
<'limcs.* 

P>ut the benefits of commerce are reciprocal, and if 
slavery receives a new impulse from the slave-trade 
in till' warm regions of the South, it acquires in- 
creased stability in more temperate countries tlirough 
the same cause. We have already seen the tendency 
of slave-labour to exhaust the soil, and the rapidity 
with which this process proceeds, reducing to the 
condition of wilderness districts which fifty years 
before were yet untouched by the hand of cultiva- 
tion. XoAv, this would seem to promise that the 
reign of slavery, if ruinous, should at least be bi-ief, 
and we might expect that, when the soil had been 
robbed of its fertility, the destroyer would retire 
iVoin the region which he had rendered desolate. 

• In tliis adaptation the slaveholders trace the finger of God. 
The Profi'SKor of Agricultural Chemistry in the University of 
Georgia remarks on the •* providential " proportion between the 
uiitille<l lands of the South, and llu- " unemployed power of luunan 
nmsi.h'S in Africa," — " I trace," he exclaims, " the growing demand 
for negro muscles, bones, and brains to the good providence of 
God." 



IN RELATION TO THE BREEDING COUNTRIES. I I 3 

And such would be the fate of slaver}", were it 
depending exclusively on the soil for its support ; 
but, when trading in human beings is once intro- 
duced, a new source of profit is developed for the 
system, which renders it in a great degree independ- 
ent of the resources of the soil. It is this, the 
profit developed by trading in slaves, and this alone, 
which has enabled slavery in the older Slave States 
of North America to survive the consequences of its 
own ravages. In Maryland and Virginia, perhaps 
also in the Carolinas and Georgia, free institutions 
would long since have taken the place of slavery, 
were it not that just as the crisis of the system had 
arrived, the domestic slave-trade opened a door of 
escape from a position which had become untenable. 
The conjuncture was peculiar, and would doubtless 
by Southern theologians be called pro\'idential. The 
progress of devastation had reached the point at 
which slave cultivation could no longer sustain 
itself A considerable emigration of planters had 
actually taken place, and the deserted fields were 
already receiving a new race of settlers from the 
regions of freedom.* The long night of slavery 

* The progress of this movement is thus described by the SouiJieni 
Planter : — " Every farm was greatly impoverished — ahnost every 
estate was seriously impaired — and some were involved in debt to 
nearly their value. Most of the proprietors had died, leaving families 
in reduced circumstances, and in some cases in great straits. No farm 
whether of a rich or a poor proprietor had escaped great exhaustion, 



I I 4 DIVISION OF LABOUR 

siH'HU'd to he passing" away, and tlie dawn of a 
l)i-iL:litrr day to have arrived, when suddenly the 
an>j»i( ions nuivenicnt was arrested. A vast exten- 

iinJ no projierty great dilapidation, unless because the proprietor had 
at fii-st boon too poor to join in the former expensive habits of liis 
wealthier neighbours. There was nothing left to waste, but tinie 
:md labour ; and these continued to be wasted in the now fruitless 
efforts to cultivate to profit, or tt^ replace the fertility of soil which 
liad Ikh-u destroyed. Luxury and expense had been greatly lessened. 
Hut on that account the universal ]>rostration was even the more 
apparent. Many mansions were falling into decay. Few received 
any but triviid and indispensable repairs. No new mansion was 
erected, and rarely any other farm-building of value. There was 
still generally prevailing idleness among proprietors ; and also an 
abandonment of hope, which made every one desirous to soil his 
land and move to the fertile and fai- West, and a general emigration 
and (.lispei-sion was only prevented by the impossibility of finding 
purchasers for the lands, even at half the then low estimate of 
market prices." The consequences are further described by. Mr. 
Olmsted : — "Notwithstanding a constant emigration of the decayed 
families, and of the more enterprising of the poor, the population 
steadily augmented. ... If the apparent wealth of the country was 
not incre;asing, the foundation of a gi-eater material prosperity was 
beiii-,' laid in the inci-cixse of the number of small Init intelligent 
proprietoi-s, and in the constantly gro«-ing necessity to abandon 
tobacco, and substitute grains, or varied crops, as the staple produc- 
tions of the coimtry. The very circumstance that reduced the old 
pseudo-wealthy proprietors was favourable to tliis change, and to 
the application f»f intelligence to a more profitable disposal of the 
remaining elements of wealth in the land. Wliile midtitudes 
abandoned their ancestral acres in despair, or were driven from 
them by the recoil of their fathers' inconsiderate expenditures, 
they were taken |)08se8sion of by 'new men,' endowed with more 
hopefulness and energy if not moi-e intelligence than the old." — 
HeabiMird .b'/«jv Statf/>, ])p. 2 "4-2 76. 



BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW STATES. I I 5 

sion of the territory of the United States, opening 
new soils to Southern enterprise, exactly coincided 
^v4th the prohibition of the external slave trade, and 
both fell in with the crisis in the older states. The 
result was a sudden and remarkable rise in the price 
of slaves. The problem of the planters' position was 
at once solved, and the domestic slave-trade com- 
menced. Slavery had robbed Virginia of the best 
riches of her soil, but she still had a noble climate — 
a climate which would fit her admirably for being 
the breeding place of the South. A division of la- 
bour between the old and the new states took place. 
In the former the soil was extensively exhausted, but 
the climate was salubrious ; in the latter the climate 
was unfavourable to human life spent in severe toil, 
but the soil was teeming with riches. The old states, 
therefore, undertook the part of breeding and rear- 
ing slaves till they attained to physical vigour, and 
the new that of using up in the development of their 
virgin resources the physical vigour which had been 
thus obtained.* 

* " The citizens of Virginia indignantly deny that they breed and 
rear slaves for the purpose of selling them. 'Not only do those who 
interpose this denial do so, in the vast majority of cases, with a 
consciousness of truth; but, perhaps, in no single instance can it be 
truly afi&rmed, that any individual slave is raised for the purpose of 
being sold. The determination to rear slaves is formed and executed 
this year, while the act of selling may not take place until twenty 
years hence. The two things are probably never resolved and 
consummated as parts of one plan. The fallacy of the denial 



1 I 6 THE SLAVE TRADE SECURELY FOUNDED 

It has ]k'ci\ toMtriuU'il tluit tlu' constant drain of 
slaves must have its cft'ect in diminishing, and nlti- 
matt'ly exhausting, the sLive popuhition in the states 
lVt»m wliirli it proceeds ; and «»n this ground the 
domestic shive trade has I'ound advocates amongst 
persons who })rot"ess tliemselves opposed to slavery 
in geufral, as tending to effect its extinction in the 
ohler states. lUit sucli a view, if sincerely enter- 
tained, can oidv find credit witli tliose who are 
unacquainted with tlie laws of population, and it 
has lieen amply refuted l>y the experience of half 
a century^ Far from conducing in the slightest 
detrree to the decline of slaverv in the ()lder states, 
the inter-state traffic has tended directly to estab- 
lish it, and the slave population of those states has 
steadily increased nnder the drain. The single ex- 

intorposed by the people of Virginia consists in this, that, although 
no one slave may be raised wnth a special view to his sale, yet the 
entire business of raising slaves is carried on \nih reference to the 
price of slaves, and solely in consequence of the price of slaves ; 
and this price depends, as they well know, solely upon the domestic 
slave trade. Of the men who deny for themselves individually the 
fact of raising slaves for the purpose of selling them, too many make 
no scniplo in insisting upon markets to keep up the price of slaves. 
The well-known lamentation of a successful candidate for the gov- 
ernorship of Virginiii, uttt^red ^^'ithout rebuke before a Virginia 
audience, that the closing of the mines of California to slave labour, 
hail prevented the j)rice of an able-botlied negro man from rising to 
five thousand dollars, is only a single example of the freedom and 
publicity with which the domestic slave trade is advocated in that 
state." — /'nHprss nf Slaitri/, pji. 147-148, 



IN THE PRINCIPLES OF POPULATION. I 1 7 

ception to this statement is the State of Delaware, 
and Delaware is the only one of those states in which 
the sale or removal of slaves is prohibited by law. 
The real character of tlni influence exercised by the 
internal trade on the breeding states was strikingly 
sho^\'n on the annexation of Texas. That event oc- 
curred in 1 844. It was followed by a great increase 
in the demand for slaves for the South, and with 
what effect on the states which supplied them ? — 
with the effect of a positive increase in their slave 
population. The slave population of the principal 
slave-breeding state, Virginia, had declined in the 
decade previous to the annexation, but at the end of 
the following decade it was found to have increased. 
The explanation of this is, of course, perfectly simple. 
Slaves in the older states being of little value for 
agricultural purposes, there is no inducement to 
encourao-e their increase so lonf^ as afn'iculture is 
the sole purpose to which they can be turned ; but 
Avith the increase of the slave trade, their value in- 
creases, and they are, therefore, raised in greater 
numbers. The phenomenon need surprise no one 
w^ho has attended to the ordinary facts of emigrating 
countries. The United Kingdom is of all European 
countries that from which emigration is greatest, 
and it is also that in which population increases 
most rapidly. Emigration from Germany is greater 
than from France, and population in Germany ad- 



I I 8 THE ANALOGY OF CATTLE BREEDING. 

vances more rapidly than in France. Spain and 
Portugal were once colonizing nations, and since 
they liave ceased to colonize, the rate at which their 
population increases has declined. A more apposite 
illustration is that of cattle breeding. It has never 
been found that the ojiening of new markets for 
cattle has any tendency to exhaust the breed in the 
countries which raise them ; and, so long as human 
beings are subjected to precisely the same influences 
as cattle, it is idle to expect a different result. In 
each case the power of multiplication is the same, 
and where the same inducement is offered, a cor- 
responding result may be expected to follow. 



119 



CHAPTER V. 

INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

It may be well here to trace briefly the salient 
features of the system Avhich in the previous chap- 
ters it has been attempted to describe. A race supe- 
rior to another in power and civilization holds that 
other in bondage, compelling it to work for its 
profit. The enslaved race, separated broadly from 
the dominant one in its leading physical and moral 
attributes, is further distinguished from it by the 
indelible mark of colour, which prevents the growth 
of mutual sympathy and transmits to posterity the 
brand of its disgrace. Kept in compulsory ignorance 
and deprived of all motive for intelligent exertion, 
this people can only furnish its possessors with the 
crudest form of manual labour. It is thus rendered 
unfit for every branch of industry Avhich requires, 
in any but the lowest forms, the exercise of care, in- 
teUio-ence, or skill, and is virtually restricted to the 
pursuit of agriculture. In agriculture it can only 
be turned to profitable account under certain special 
conditions— in raising crops of a peculiar kind and 
upon soils of more than average fertility ; while 
these by its thriftless methods it tends constantly 



I 20 OUTLINE OF THE ECONOMY 

to exhaust. TIu- lahuiir ui' tlie enslaved race is thus 
ill practiee routined to the production of a few lead- 
ing staples ; but, thi*ou<ih the medium of foreign 
trade, these lew commodities heeome tlie means of 
lurnishing its masters with all the conveniences and 
comforts of life — the product of intelligence and 
skill in countries where labour is free. Further, 
it was seen that the defects of serA'ile labour are best 
neutralized, ami sucli advantages as it possesses 
best turned to account, where the scale of the oper- 
ations is large, — a circumstance, which, Ijy placing a 
premium on the emplo^nienr of large capitals, has 
gradually led to the accumulation of the whole 
wealth of the country in the hands of a small num- 
ber of persons. Four million slaves have thus come 
into the possession of masters less than one-tenth of 
their number, by whom they are held as chattel 
pro})erty ; while the rest of the dominant race, more 
numerous than slaveholders and their slaves together, 
squat over the vast area which slave labour is too 
unskilful to cultivate, where by hunting and fishing, 
by plunder or by lawless adventure, they eke out a 
precarious livelihood. Three leading elements are 
thus presented by the economy of slave states — a 
few planters cultivating the richest soils, a multitude 
of slaves toiling for tlieir ])rofit, the bulk of the 
white poj)ulatiou dispersed in a semi-savage condi- 
tion n\{-v a vast tcrritoi'x. Iu course of time the 



OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 121 

system begins to bear its fruit. Tlie more fertile 
soils of the country, tasked again and again to ren- 
der the same products, at length become exhausted, 
and refuse any longer to yield up their riches to 
servile hands ; but there are new soils within reach 
which the plough has not yet touched, regions of 
high fertility, pre-eminently fitted for the cultiva- 
tion of slave products, bordering however on the 
tropics, and unfavourable to human life when en- 
gaged in severe toil. At this point a new phase of 
the system discloses itself. A division of labour 
takes place. A portion of the slaveholders with 
their slave bands move forward to occupy the new 
territory, while the remainder, holding to their old 
seats, become the breeders of slaves for those who 
have left them, and take, as their part, the repairing 
from their more healthy populations the waste of 
slave life produced by tropical toil. Thus, as the do- 
main of slavery is extended, its organization becomes 
more complete, and the fate of the slave population 
more harsh and hopeless. Slavery in its simple and 
primitive form is developed into slavery supported 
by a slave trade — into slavery expansive, aggressive, 
destructive of human life, regardless of human ties, 
— into slavery in its most dangerous and most atro- 
cious form ; and for the system thus matured a 
secure basis is afforded by the principles of popula- 
tion. Such is an outline of the economy of society 



122 THEY IXCLLDE NO ELEMENT OF PROGRESS. 

ill tlic Slave States oi' Nrntli America, as 1 liave ven- 
tured tu ileseril)c it ; and the eoiiditioii of facts which 
it discloses goes far, as it sceiiis tu me, to establish 
the conclusion tliat it is a structure essentially differ- 
ent from an\- Inrm ol" s«»cial life Avhich has hitherto 
been known among progressive communities, and 
one which, if allowed to proceed in its normal de- 
velopment undisturbed by intervention from without, 
can only conduct to one issue — an organized bar- 
barism of the most relentless and formidable kind. 

r»ut it may be well to pursue tliis inquiry some- 
wliat further. If the germs of a future civilization 
are contained in the social system which has been 
described, in what department of it are they to be 
found ? Amono- the mean whites ? Amon"; the 
slaves ? Among the slave masters ? 

The mean whites, as has been shown, are the 
natural growth of the slave system ; their existence 
and character flowing necessarily from two facts — 
the slaves, which render the capitalists independent 
of their services,* and tlie wilderness, the constant 
feature of slave countries, whicli enables them to 
exist without engaging in regular woi-k. There 
is no capital to support them as hired labour- 
ers,, and they have the means of subsisting, in a 
semi-savage condition, without it. Under these cir- 

• " The rich," said Oeiicral Marion, and in these few words he 
sketched the whole working of slavery, " liave no need of the poor, 
because they have their own slaves to do tlu-ir wcrk.' 



THE MEAN WHITES. 



123 



cumstances ,by what steps are they to advance to an 
improvement of their condition ? 

It will perhaps be thought that with a vast unap- 
propriated territory around them the mean whites 
may be expected in time to become peasant proprie- 
tors, and to cultivate the districts which they now 
merely occupy. This is undoubtedly what would 
happen with an influx of Northern settlers. But the 
mean whites lack for such a lot two indispensable 
requisites, capital and industry. Had they the lat- 
ter, they might perhaps in time acquire the former ; 
but regular industry is only known to them as the 
vocation of slaves, and it is the one fate which above 
all others they desire to avoid. They will for a time, 
indeed, when pressed for food, their ordinary re- 
sources of hunting or plunder failing them, hire 
themselves out for occasional services ; but, so soon 
as • they have satisfied the immediate need, they 
hasten to escape from the degradation of industry, 
and are as eager as Indians to return to their wilds. 

Another means of redemption is sometimes ima- 
gined for the mean whites. It is thought that, with 
the progress of population in the Slave States, they 
will ultimately be forced into competition with the 
slaves, and that, this competition once effectually 
commenced, the whites once engaged in regular 
industry, the superiority of free to servile labour 
will become manifest, and will gradually lead to the 



124 GHtJWTH i)F KEGT'I.AR INDUSTRY 

(lisplacc'iiK'Ut of tlic latter. In this wav. it is 
aiitii'ipatetl, the ]ir()l)U'Hi ut" ahnli^hiiiti shivery, and 
that iA' elevatiiiL"" tlie wliite jjopulatioii, iiia\' in tlie 
natural course of events be effectually solved by the 
same process. Unfortunately this cheering view is 
entirely unsustained by any foundation of fact. 
Population in slave communities follows laws of 
<rrowtli of its own. It increases, it is true, but by 
dispersion, not by concentration, and consequently 
the pressure upon the poor white, which it is 
assumed will force him into competition with the 
slave, is never likely to l)e ;ireater than at the pre- 
sent moment. In fact it has now in many districts 
reached the starvation |)oint, but without producing 
any of the effects which are anticipated from it. 
I>ut, again, the free labour of the South possesses 
none of that superiority to slave labour, which is 
characteristic of free labour when reared in free com- 
munities. This is a distinction wliich in economic 
reasonings on slavery is frequently overlooked,* 

• Thus ix writer in the Saturday Revieiv (Xov. 2, 1861), in 
noticing a work of Mr. Olmsted's, reasons as follows : — " It 
would 1)0 hasty to infer, as a gre^it many philanthropists have done, 
that free labour would answer better than sla^■e labour in the 
SoutL The Southern phmtoi-s are keen enough specvdators to 
have discovered the fact if it were true. In reality the experiment 
has been tried and i-esulted in favour of shti-e labour." The experi- 
ment no doubt hiUi been tried, and with the result alle^'ed; but how 
far the experiment, as it has been eonducted, i.s eonelusive, the 
reader wUI be eiiableil to judge when he reads the following pa.ssivge 



A MORAL IMPOSSIBILITY. 1 25 

but which it is all-important to bear in mind. The 
free labourer reared in free communities, energetic, 
intelligent, animated by the impulse of acquiring 
property, and trained to habits of thrift, is the best 
productive agent in the world, and, when brought 
into competition with the slave, will, except under 
v-ery exceptional circumstances (such as existed when 
the continent was first settled), prove more than a 
match for him. But the free labourer of the South, 

from ]\Ir. Olmsted, in a review of one of whose works the above 
argument occurred : — " The labourer, who in New York gave a 
certain amount of labour for his wages in a day, soon finds in 
Virginia that the ordinary measure of labour is smaller than in New 
York : a ' day's work' or a month's does not mean the same that it 
did in New York. He naturally adapts his wares to the market. 
. . . The labourer, finding that the capitalists of Virginia are accus- 
tomed to pay for a poor article at a high price, prefers to furnish 
them the poor article at their usual price, rather than a better 
article, unless at a more than correspondingly better price. . . . 
Now let the white labourer come here from the North or from 
Europe — his nature demands a social life — shall he associate with 
the poor, slavish, degraded negro, with whom labour and punishment 
are almost synonymous 1 or shall he be the friend and companion of 
the white man] . . . Associating with either or both, is it not 
inevitable that he will be rapidly demoralized — that he will soon 
learn to hate labour, give as little of it for his hu-e as he can, 
become base, cowardly, faithless, — 'worse than a nigger"?" The 
case is simple. The moral atmosphere generated by slavery in the 
South corrupts the free labourer, whether native or imported : thus 
corrupted, he fails in competition with the slave ; but does it foUow 
from tliis that, if slavery no longer existed, free labour would be 
less efficient in the South than slave labour is at present? For 
that is the point. 



1 l6 ABSENCE OF REGULAR INDUSTRY : 

l)li<ThtL'cl physically and" morally by the preseiioc of 
slavery, ami trained in hal>its more suited to savagre 
than to industrial lite, easily succumbs in the compe- 
tition. Ill taet the experiment is being constantly 
tried in the Southern States, and always ^v^th the 
same result. On the relative merits of slave and 
free labour — such free labour as the Slave States 
can produce — there is but one opinion among the 
planters. It is universally agreed that the labour of 
the mean whites* is more inefficient, more unreli- 
al)lc, more unmanageable than even the crude efforts 
of the slaves. If slavery in the South is to be dis- 
placed by free industry, it can never be through the 
competition of such free industry as this. 

It does not appear, therefore, in what manner 
habits of regular industry can ever be acquired by 
the mass of the population of the Southern States 
while under a slave regime. The demoralization 
produced by the presence of a degi'aded class ren- 
ders the white man at once an unwillino^ and an 
inefficient labourer ; and the external incidents of 
slavery afford him the means of existing without 
engaging in regular toil. The question has, in truth, 
[)assed beyond the region of speculation. For two 
liundred years it has been submitted to the proof ; 
[ind the mean whites are as far now from havinfr 

• And it may be added, of such free lal)ourcrs as will consent to 
^he degradation of living in a slave community. 



ITS CONSEQUENCES. I 27 

made any progress in habits of regular industry as 
they were at the commencement of the period. 

The result, then, at which we arrive is, that re- 
gular industry is not to be expected from the mass 
of the free people of the Southern States while sla- 
very continues. Let us for a moment reflect upon 
some of the consequences involved in this single 
fact. 

And, first, it is evident that under these condi- 
tions population in the Slave States must ever re- 
main sparse ; for density of population is the result 
of concentrated wealth, and concentrated wealth 
flows from the steady pursuit of systematic industry. 
What are the facts ? Over the whole area of the 
Slave States the average density of population does 
not exceed 11.29 persons to the square mile. It is 
true a large portion of the region included in this 
average has but recently been acquired, and cannot 
be considered as having yet received its full comple- 
ment of inhabitants. Let us, then, confine our ob- 
servations to the older states. If population be 
capable of becoming dense under slave institutions, 
it should have realized this condition in Virginia. 
This state has been for two hundred and fifty years 
the seat of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the chosen 
field of its industry : it abounds in natural advan- 
tages ; its climate is remarkably salubrious. What, 
then, is the result of the experiment in Virginia ? 



128 EXTREME SPARSENESS OF POPULATION. 

It appears iVoin tin- I'ciisus of 1850, that, attor an 
industrial career of two hundred and fifty years, 
this eountrv contained an avcra;;e of 23 persons to 
the square mile I This, however, does not ade- 
(piatcly rr}»rcsfnt the case ; for of these 23 persons 
one-third un an average were slaves. Deducting 
these, the density of population in Virginia — of 
population among whom knowledge is not consi- 
dered contraband, of population who are capable of 
mixing together as fellow-citizens (which is the point 
essential to our argument) — the density of this popu- 
hition is represented by tlie proportion of 15 per- 
sons to the square mile ! Compare this with tlie 
progress of population in aiv area of the Free States 
naturally less favourable to the multiplication of 
people and not so long settled, — with the area com- 
prised by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania — and 
what do we find ? Population has here, in a shorter 
time, and under external conditions less favourable, 
reached an averagi," density of 82 persons to the 
square mile. For etpial areas in the Free and Slave 
States there are thus considerably more than five 
persons capable of taking part in the business of civi- 
lized life in the former for one in the latter. Popu- 
hition under slave institutions, in fact, onl}- increases 
by dispersion. Fifteen persons to the square mile 
represent the maximum density which population 



INCOMPATIBLE WITH CIVILIZED PEOGRESS. I 29 

under the most favourable circumstances is, Avith 
slavery, capable of attaining.* Now, this state of 
things is incompatible with civilized progress. Under 
such conditions social intercourse cannot exist; po- 
pular education becomes impracticable ; roads, ca- 
nals, railways, must be losing speculations ; in short, 
all the civilizing agencies of highest value are, by the 
very nature of the case, excluded. Among a people 
so dispersed, for example, how is popular education 
to be carried on ? Not to dwell upon the obstacles 
presented to the diffusion of knowledge by the men- 
tal habits of a people accustomed to the life of the 
mean whites — a life alternating between listless va- 
grancy and the excitement of marauding expeditions 
— the mere physical difficulties of the problem — the 
task of bringing together from a population so dis- 
persed the materials of a school — would be such as 
might well discourage the most determined zeal. In 
point of fact, all attempts at conveying education to 
the bulk of the people in the Southern States have 
proved costly failures. Experiments have been made 
in some of the states, and always with the same re- 

* The density of population in Delaware, Maryland, and Ken- 
tucky is no doubt greater than tliis ; but it is because these States 
are occupied, over considerable districts, with a free labouring pea- 
santry, because in fact in these districts slavery has been abolished. 
This is the case with Western Virginia also to a considerable extent, 
and doubtless raises the average of the whole country above what a 
purely servile regime would produce. 



130 EXTREME Sl'ARSENESS OF POrULATION 

suit.* Till' inoi'al ami }»li\>ical diHiciilt'uss of the 
ItroMcin lia\c pmNcd insujirrahh' ; and the mass of 
the jtcdplc rt'inains. aii<l under tin- present soeial 
system i-vt'i* must remain, ciitircU- uninstructed. 

Nor is thi^^ the (>nl\- way in which sparseness of 
population oi>erates unfavourably on the intellectual 
progress of a jx'oph'. Scarcely less im])ortant than 
xhool teaching, as instruments of popular education, 
are the societies established for the mutual improve- 
UKiit of those avIkj take part in them, such as me- 
chanics' institutes, an<l liti-raiy and scientific asso- 
I'iatious. of whicli such extensive use is inade in tliis 
country and in the Northern States. But from this 
efficacious mode of awakening intelligence, a people, 
■whose social institutions prevent it from attaining 
greater concentration than is reached l)y the people 
of the South, is entirely excluded. f 

Lastly, how are the means of communication to 

* See Olmsted's Seaboard Slaiv States, pp. 291, 292, ^66, 367, 503. 

t Some statistics bearing upon this aspect of the question have 
been given by Mr. Helper, which are sufficiently striking. It 
appears that the number of public libraries throughout the ■whole 
of the Slave States are only 695 against 14,911 in the Free States; 
or about i public library in the South for 21 in the North. Again, 
the number of volumes in pul)lic libraries in the Slave States is 
(^•49,5 77; whil(! the num])er in public libraries in the Free States is 
3,888,284 ; that is to say, in the jiroportion of al>out i to 6. — 
( Helper's ImjyeviUng Crisis, ji. 337.) Probably, were the (juality of 
tbc literature as well a.s the quantity given, tlie result wouhl be 
still more significant. 



INCOMPATIBLE WITH CIVILIZED PROGRESS. I3I 

be developed under such conditions ? How are rail- 
ways to be made profitable in a population of fifteen 
persons to the square mile ? Railways, no doubt, 
have been made in the South, but with more advan- 
tage to the travellers than to the shareholders. In 
South Carolina a train has been known to travel a 
hundred miles with a single passenger.* 

The mean whites seem thus, under an inexorable 
law, to be bound to their present fate by the same 
chain which holds the slave to his. Slavery pro- 
duces distaste for industry. Distaste for industry, 
coexisting with a wilderness which is also the fruit 
of slavery, disperses population over vast areas as 
the one condition of its increase. Among such a 
people the requisites of progress do not exist ; the 
very elements of civilization are wanting. 

If, then, society is to advance in the South, 
we must look somewhere else than among the mass 
of the white population for the motive principle 
which is to propel it. And Avhere are we to look? 
Southern society furnishes but two other elements — 
the slaves and their masters. What germ of hope 
does either of these present ? If civilization is to 
spring up among the negro race, it will scarcely be 
contended that this will happen while they are still 
slaves ; and if the present ruling class are ever to 
rise above the existing type, it must be in some 

* See Stirling's Letters from tlie Slave States, p, 265. 

9* 



1^1 PROSPECT OF SPONTANEOUS EMANCIPATION. 

Other capacity than as shivchuhlors. The whole 
question therefore turns ultimately on the chances 
of slave emancipation. Slave emancipation may, of 
course, be forced upon tlic Soutli l>y pressure from 
without ; l»ut tlie point which we have now to con- 
sider is the prospect of this result being attained in 
the natural course of its internal development. 

And first let us observe the inherent difficulty of 
tlie prol)lem. It was shown in a former chapter 
that in the system of North American slavery, ob- 
stacles exist to the emancipation of the slave which 
had no place among the ancients. It may now be 
added that the difficulties of slave emancipation in 
the present Slave States are far greater than those 
wliicli were successfully encountered in the North- 
ern. ( )\ving to causes already explained, slavery 
liad never taken very firm root in the North : 
it was becoming, with the growth of society, con- 
stantly less profitable : the total number of slaves 
formed Init a small fraction of the whole popula- 
tion : above all, the Northern States had in the 
markets of the South a ready means of ridding 
themselves, at trifling loss, of a class which had be- 
come an incumbrance. For, to borrow the words 
of De Tocqueville, the overthrow^ of slavery in the 
Northern States was eftecteil " by abolishing the 
]irinciple of slavery, not by setting the slaves free." 
riie Northern people did not emancipate negroes who 



MODERN PRECEDENTS INAPPLICABLE. 



^33 



■were enslaved, but they provided for tlie future ex- 
tinction of slavery by legislating for the freedom of 
their offspring. The operation of this plan may 
be readily supposed. The future offspring of the 
slave having by the law of a particular state 
been declared free, the slave himself lost a portion 
of his value in that state. But in the South 
these laws had no force, and consequently in the 
South the value of the slave was unaltered by the 
change. The effect, therefore, of the Northern mea- 
sures of abolition was, for the most part, simply to 
transfer Northern slaves to Southern markets. In 
this way, by an easy process, Avithout incurring any 
social danger, and at slight pecuniary loss, the 
Northern States got rid of slavery. The problem 
of enfranchisement in the South is of a very dif- 
ferent character. Slavery, instead of being, as it 
always was in the North, but one, and an unim- 
portant one, among many modes of industry, is 
there virtually the sole industrial instrument : in- 
stead of comprising an insignificant fraction of the 
whole population, it comprises throughout the whole 
South one-third, and in some States one-half: it 
numbers altogether four millions of people : lastly, 
the South is wholly without that easy means of 
shuffling off slavery which its o^v^l markets pro- 
vided for the North. The two cases are thus 
wholly unlike, and the spontaneous disappearance 



134 ECONOMIC CAUSES 

• )t' slavery iVma the XortliciMi section of tlu^ riiioii 
Liivi-s little »j.touikI to hope lor a siiiiihir result in 
tlio [H'csent Slave States, 

And still less warranted ai*e we in expectinir a 
|>.ili.\- of emancipation iVnin the South 1)\' the his- 
t"»rv 1)1" Pn'itish eni;Mi(ij)ati()ii in the West Indies ; 
for that ev<'nt was not hrouiiht ahout in the natural 
course of sui-ial iniprovenient in tliose islands, hut 
was forced upon them by the mother nation, in the 
face of the ])rotests and remonstrances of their ruliiiii- 
classes. Instead of being the natural result of prin- 
eijik's called int(j action under slave institutions, it 
was only accomplished with difficulty throu<:h tlie 
direct and forcible interposition of an external au- 
thority. 

So far as to ancient and modern precedents : they 
are palpably inapplicable to the present case. But 
tlicre are those who anticipate the growth of a liber- 
al policy in the South from the gradual operation 
of economic causes in ultimately identifying the in- 
terests of jdanters with those of the general commu- 
nity.* It will be worth Avhile briefly to examine 

•Mr. Stirling relics upon the iollnwing consiik-mtions tia coutiiiii- 
iiig the solution of the problem. "Within the last ten or fifteen 
years thi- value of slaves has risen fifty per cent, at least During 
the Kjuno time the price of hacon has risen joo to 200 percent. 
Ix't this process only be continued for ten years longer, and where 
will be the profits of the cotton-plaiit4«r ? And hero we may per- 
l,;.i.~ liiNl t)i,. l..np-lnokM for solution of tjio nigger <|uestion. When 



NOT TO BE RELIED ON. 



^35 



the argument which is founded upon this view of 
the case. It is said that free kibour (regarded from 
a purely economic point of view — moral considera- 
tions apart) being superior to slave labour, and this 
principle being exemplified by the whole industrial 
history of the Xorthern and Southern States — the 
former, though naturally less fertile, having far out- 
stripped the latter in the race of material prosperity 
— the truth must ultimately be recognised by the 
slaveholders themselves, and that, so soon as this 
happens, they will be led by self interest to adopt 
a policy of emancipation. The case may indeed be 
put more strongly than this ; for slavery has not 
merely thwarted the general prosperity of the South, 

slave-labour becomes unprofitable, the slave will be emancipated. 
South Carolina herself will turn abolitionist when slavery ceases to 
pay. When she finds that a brutalized race cannot and will not 
give as much efficient labour for the money as a hired class of supe- 
rior workers, it is possible that she may lay aside the cowhide, and 
oifer wages to her niggers." — Letters from Slave States, pp. 182, 183. 
The argument is palpably fallacious. It is the same as if one were 
to argue that the high rent of land must ultimately destroy agricul- 
ture. In each case the high price of the natural agent — land or 
slaves — results from the comparative profitableness of capital in- 
vested in the employment of one or the other. When the high price 
of land leads landlords to throw up their estates, an analogous course 
of conduct may be expected from slaveholders from an analogous 
inducement. The high price of the slave's food is scarcely to the 
point, since this must tell also against the free labourer : at all 
events, so long as the slave fetches any price, it is a proof that he 
is considered to be worth at least more than his keep. 



136 ECONOMIC CAUSES 

it iiKiv c'VLMi be fehuwii to IjiiVL* opLTtitcd to the spe- 
cial cletriineiit of the particuhir class for whose 
exclusive behoof it is iiiaintaiiietl. F(jr the slave- 
holders of the South are also its lauded proprietors, 
and the uniform effect of shivery (as has been shown 
in a tornn r part of this essay) has been, by confin- 
ing cultivation to tlie rich soils, to j)revent the 
growth of rent. So j)oNVrrfnll\', indeed, has tlus 
cause operated, that it has been calculated, appa- 
rently ui)on good grounds,* that the mere difference 
in rent between the returns from lands of equal 
(juality in the Free and Slave States would be more 
than sutiicient to buy up the whole slave pro- 
}»erty of the South, By the abolition of slavery in 
that country, therefore, not merely would the gene- 
ral prosperity of the inhabitants be promoted, but, 
by the rise of rent which would be the consequence 
of this measure, there would result to slaveholders 
a special gain — a gain which, it may reasonably be 
tliouglit, would form a liberal compensation for 
any temporary inconvenience they might suffer 
from the change. Considerations so obvious, it 
is argued, must in tlie end have their effect on 
the minds of the ruling class in tlie South, and must 
lead them l)efore long to abolish a system which is 
iVaught with such baleful effects to the country and 

t<i tlleliiselves. 

* Src Olin.sl^^d's Seaboard Slaiy <S(a((S, pp. 170, iy\. 



NOT TO BE RELIED ON. 



137 



To the soundness of this reasoning, so far as it 
proves the benefieial results which would follow from 
the abolition of slavery, I do not think tliat any 
valid objection can be offered. It aj^pears to me as 
demonstrable as any proposition in Euclid, that, 
extending our view over some generations, slavery 
has acted injuriously on every class and every inter- 
est in the South, and that its continued maintenance 
is absolutely incompatible with the full development 
of the resources of the country. Nevertheless it 
would, I conceive, be infinitely precarious from 
this position to infer that slaveholders will ever be 
induced voluntarily to abolish slavery. The slave- 
holders of the South are perfectly aware of the supe- 
rior prosperity of the Free States : it is with them a 
subject of bitter mortification and envy ; but, with 
the most conclusive evidence before their eyes, they 
persist in attributing this to every cause but the 
right one. Supposing, however, that they are in 
the end convinced, by such arguments as I have 
referred to, of the injurious effects of their system, 
and that they are satisfied that the immediate loss 
from the abolition of slavery would be more than 
made good to their descendants in the future in- 
crease in the value of their land, still I apprehend 
that they would be as far as ever from being 
won over to a policy of abolition. For, what- 
ever be the future advantages which may be ex- 



I }0 I'DLITICAL AND SOCIAL MOTIVES 

l>e*ctcd from the cliaiigo, it is vain to deny that the 
transition from shivery to freedom couhl not he 
(.•H'erti'd without great inoonvenienee, loss, and, 
douhth'ss, in many cases, ruin, to the present race 
of shi\tliohh'rs, Tlie accumuhited results of two 
IiuiKh-rd vears ol" t\raiiii\', cruelty, and disregard 
of tlic iirst ol' liunian rights are not thus easily 
c\a<l('(l. A sacrifice there would need to be.* 
And it is vain to expect that slaveholders, of 
wliose system selfishness is the fundamental prin- 
ii])le, and whose profits are purchased, not merely 
at the cost of misery to a Avhole race of livinjr men, 
hut at the cost of tlie future prosperity of their own 
decendants, whose interests in the soil their spend- 
thrift system anticipates — it is vain to expect that 
they of all men should voluntarily devote themselves 
for the good of their country. So long, therefore, . 
as slaveholders have at their disposal an unlimited 
extent of fei'tile soil suited to slave products, it is, 
1 think, vain to hope that the question of slavery will 
ever find its solution in economic motives. But, in 
trutli, it is idle to argue this (juestioii on j)ureh- 
econoiuie grounds. It is not sini]>l\- as a j)roduc- 
tive instrument that slavery is vahud hv its suj)- 

* Tin- ^V(•.st liulian experiment, I conceive, proves this as cou- 
• liisivcly a.s it proves that the ultimate and in'riuancnt results ol' 
('niau(;ii)ation are beneficial tu the whole rouiitry in tlic highest 
<l.•^:n•(•. 



THE REAL STRENGTH OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. 139 

porters. It is far rather for its social and political 
results — as the means of upholding a form of society 
in which slaveholders are the sole depositaries of 
social prestige and political power, as the " corner 
stone" of an edifice of which they are the masters — 
that the system is prized. Abolish slavery, and you 
introduce a new order of things, in which the ascen- 
dancy of the men who now rule in the South would 
be at an end. An innnigration of new men would 
set in rapidly from various quarters. The planters 
and their adherents Avould soon be placed in a hope- 
less minority in their old dominions. New inter- 
ests would take root and grow ; new social ideas 
would germinate ; new political combinations would 
be formed ; and the power and hopes of the party 
Avhich has long swayed the politics of the Union, and 
which now seeks to break loose from that Union in 
order to secure a free career for the accomplishment 
of bolder designs, would be gone for ever. It is 
this which constitutes the real strength of slavery in 
the Southern States, and which precludes even the 
momentary admission by the dominant party there 
of any proposition which has abolition for its object. 
And in view of this aspect of North American 
slavery, Ave may see how perfectly futile, hoAv abso- 
lutely childish, is the suggestion, that the Slave 
party should be bought over by the Federal govern- 
ment through the offer of a liberal compensation, 



I^O FURTHER SUPPORT TO SLAVERY 

atUT tlie precedent of Great Britain dealing with her 
\\ t>t Indian possessions. Putting aside the magni- 
tude til' the sum, wliich, at the price of shives Avhieli 
riTL-ntly prevaih'(l, wouM certainly not be less than 
£300,000,000 sterling, and the impossibility of rais- 
ing it in tile j)resent state of Anu-rican credit, who 
that knows anything of the aims of the Southern 
party can suppose that the proposah il" made, Avonld 
not be rejected with scorn ?* Tlie suggestion sup- 
|>nses that men who have long held paramount in- 
lluence over the North American continent, and 
who are })robably now meditating plans of annexa- 
tion and conquest, would at once abandon their posi- 
tion as the chiefs of an independent confederacy, 
and forego their ambitious schemes, for what ? — for 
a sum of money wdiich, if well invested, nnght per- 
haps enable them and their desc-ciidants to vegetate 
ill ])eaceful ol)SCuritv I 

Init there is yet another influence to be taken 

• I mil spt-jiking, of course, of tlu' ivci'ption whicli tlie jn-oposition 
V uulil iiic'ft witli while the Slave party were yet triumphant. What 
it might be induced to accept if tlioroughly beaten by the North, is 
luiotlier question which it is not necessary here to discuss. 

Since these observations were written the news, of Mr. Lincoln's 
project of emancipation has arrived. It wUl be seen that the con- 
dition stated in the last sentence— the subjugation of the South — 
is jtrecisely the circumsUmcc wliich gives to that scheme the least 
chance of success. Mr. Lincoln knew too well the men with whom 
be had to deal t<j think of making such an nllcr till he wa.s, or 
tlii'Uglil liiiiistlr. in a pnsiti<in to enforce it. 



IN THE ETHICS AND THEOLOGY OF THE SOUTH. 141 

account of in arguing this question. Slavery has not 
merely determined the general form and character 
of the social and political economy of the Southern 
States, it has entered into the soul of the people, and 
has generated a code of ethics and a type of Christi- 
anity adapted to its peculiar requirements. 

At the epoch of the revolution, as has been 
already intimated, slavery was regarded by all the 
eminent men who took part in that movement as 
essentially an evil — an evil which might indeed 
be palliated as having come down to that genera- 
tion from an earlier and less enlightened age, and 
which, having intwined itself with the institutions 
of the country, required to be delicately dealt 
with — but still an e\Til, indefensible on moral and 
religious grounds, and which ought not to be perma- 
nently endured. The Convention of 1774 unani- 
mously condemned the practice of holding slaves. % 
The Convention of 1787, Avhile legislating for the 
continuance of slavery, resolved to exclude from the 
constitution the word " slave," lest it should be 
thought that the American nation gave any sanc- 
tion to "the idea that there could be property in 
men." Washington, a native of the South and a 
slaveholder, declared it to be among his first wishes 
to see slavery abolished by law, and in his will 
provided for the emancipation of his slaves. Jeffer- 
son, also a native of the South and a slaveholder, 



\jh- 



icu 



14^ (iuowrii (IF Tin: rno-sLAVKUY skntimkxt. 

trained a plan of abolitii^n, and declared that in the 
pi'i'SLiife of slavery *' he trembled for his conntry 
when he reflected that God was just ;" tliat in the 
event of a rising'' of slaves, " the Alnii;ihty ha<l no 
attriliuti' wliiili could take side ■\vitli sia\e()wners 
in sucli a contest." The other leading statesmen of 
that time, Franklin, ^ladison, Hamilton, Patritk 
llinr\-, the Kaiidnlphs. Munroe, ^vhet]ler fn^m the 
North or from the South, whether a;^n'eeing or not 
ill their views on the practical mode of dealing with 
tlie institution, alike concurred in reprobating at 
least the principle of slavery. 

I)Ut it seems impossible that a whole people should 
live permanently in contemplation of a system wliieh 
does violence to its moral instincts. One of two 
results will happen. Either its moral instincts will 
lead it to reform the institution which offends them, 
or those instincts will be perverted, and become 
authorities for what in their unsophisticated contli- 
tion they condemned. The latter alternative is that 
which has happened in the Southern States. Slavery 
is no lon^^er rcfjarded there as a barbarous institu- 
tion, to l)e palliated with whispering humbleness as 
an iiiliti-itance from a ruder age ; but rather as a 
system admirable for its intrinsic excellence, worthy 
to be upheld and ])ropagated, the last and completest 
residt of time.* The right of the white man to 

• It is instructive In oltsorv*' the giadatiun I'V wlii' li this advaii- 



ITS ABSORBING STRENGTH. 143 

hold the negro in permanent thraldom, to compel 
him to work for his profit, to keep him in enforced 
ignorance, to sell him, to flog him, and, if need 
be, to kill him, to separate him at pleasure from his 
wife and children, to transport him for no crime to 
a remote region where he is in a few years worked 
to death — this is now propounded as a grand dis- 
covery in ethical and political science, made for the 
first time by the enlightened leaders of the Southern 
Confederation, and recommended by that philan- 
thropic body to all civilized nations for their adop- 
tion. This Confederation, which is the opprobrium 
of the age, puts itself forward as a model for its imita- 
tion, and calmly awaits the tardy applause of man- 
kind. " The ideas entertained at the time of the 
formation of the old Constitution," says the Vice- 
president of the Southern Confederacy, " were that 
the enslavement of the African race was in violation 
of the laws of nature ; that it was ^vrong in principle, 
socially, morally, and politically. Our new govern- 
ment is founded on exactly opposite ideas; its founda- 
tions are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great 
truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; 
that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is 

ced point has been reached. Thirty years ago it was contended 
" that there was not the slightest moral turpitude in holding slaves 
under existing circarastances in the South." — Quarterly Revieiv, Sept. 
and Dec, 1832. 



14-^ ITS ABSORBING STRENGTH. 

liis natural uiul moral cuinlitioii. This our Govern- 
ment is the fir.st in the history of the world based upon 
this (jreat phj/sira!, jihilosophical, and moral truth. Tt 
is upon this inir social tahi-ic is firmly i)lante(l, ami I 
caiiiiot ])ti"mit mysolf to doiiht the ultimate success 
of tin- full rL'Co<rnition of this principle throughout 
the (■i\ili/c(l and enlightened woi-ld. . . . This stone 
which was rejected by the first builders ' is become 
the c-hicf stone of the corner' in our new edifice."* 
(,)pinion in the Soutli has long passed beyontl the 
stage at which slavery needs to be defended by 
argument. The subject is now^ never touched but 
in a strain such as the freedom conquered at Mara- 
thon and Plata?a inspired in the orators of Athens. 
It is " the beneficent source and wholesome founda- 
tion of our civilization ;" an institution, " moral and 
civilizing, useful at once to blacks and wdiites." " To 
suppress slavery would be to throw back civilization 
two hundred years." " It is not a moral evil. It 
is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes. 
It is by divine appointment." 
But slavery in the South is something more than 
a moi'al and political principle : it has become a 
fashionable taste, a social passion. The possession 
of a slave in the South carries witli it the same sort 
of prestige as the possession of land in this country, 

* Speech of Mr. A. II. Stpi)heiis, Vice-president of the Southern 
Confeileriicy, delivered March, i8^)i. 



ITS UNIVERSALITY. 1 45 

as the possession of a horse among the Arabs : it 
brings the owner into connexion with the privileged 
class ; it forms a presumption that he has attained 
a certain social position. Slaves have thus in the 
South acquired a factitious value, and are coveted 
with an eagerness far l^eyond what the intrinsic 
utility of their services would explain. A Chancel- 
lor of South Carolina describes slavery as in accord- 
ance with " the proudest and most deeply cher- 
ished feelings " of his countrymen — " feelings, which 
others, if they will, may call prejudices." A gover- 
nor of Kansas declares that he " loves" the insti- 
tution, and that he votes for it because he "loves" 
it. Nor are these sentiments confined to the slave- 
holding minority. The all-important circumstance 
is that they are shared equally by the whole white 
population. Far from reprobating a system which 
has deprived them of the natural means of rising in 
the scale of humanity, they fall in with the prevail- 
ing modes of thought, and are warm admirers, and, 
when need arises, effective defenders, of an institu- 
tion which has been their curse. To be the owner 
of a slave is the chief object of the poor white's am- 
bition ; " quot servos pascit .^" the one criterion by 
which he weighs the worth of his envied superiors 
in the social scale. 

Such has been the course of opinion on the sub- 
ject of slavery in the Southern States. The progress 



146 HOPELESSNESS OF THE SLAVE'S POSITION. 

of cvctits, i'ar from conducing to the «iraduiil mitifja- 
tiun and ultimate extinction of the system, lias 
tended distinctly in the opposite direction — to the 
aLTLiravation of its worst evils and the consolida- 
tion of its Strength. The extension of the area 
subject to the Slave Power and the increase in the 
slave population have augmented at once the 
inducements for retaining the institution and the 
dilliculty of getting rid of it ; while the ideas of 
successive generations, bred up in its presence and 
under the influence of the interests to which it has 
given birth, have provided for it in the minds of the 
peopli' a uKjral support. The result is, that the posi- 
tion of the slave in the Southern States at the pre- 
sent time, so far as it depends upon the will and 
power of his masters, is in all respects more hopeless 
than it has ever been in any former age, or in any 
other quarter of the world. A Fugitive Slave law, 
which throws into shade the former atrocities of 
slavery, has been enacted, and until the recent dis- 
turbances was strictly enforced. The education 
of the negro is more than ever rigorously pro- 
scribed. Emancipation finds in the growth of fana- 
tical pro-slavery opinions obstacles more formi- 
dable even than in the laws. IVopositions have 
been entertained by the legislatures in some states 
for reducing all free coloured persons to slavery by 
one wholesale enactment ; in others these people 



SOCIAL COST OF THE SYSTEM. 1 47 

have been banished from the state under pain of 
this fate. Everything in the laws, in the customs, 
in the education of the people, has been contrived 
with the single view of degrading the negro to the 
level of the brute, and blotting out from his mind 
the hope and even the idea of freedom. 

The thoroughness — the absolute disregard of all 
consequences with which this purpose has been pur- 
sued, is but little understood in this country. His- 
tory can supply no instance of a despotism more 
complete and searching than that which for some 
years past has prevailed in the Southern States. 
Since the attempt of John Bro^vn at Harper's Ferry, 
its oppression has reached a height which can onl}^ 
be adequately described as a reign of terror. It is 
long since freedom of discussion on any question 
connected with slavery would have been tolerated. 
But it is not merely freedom of discussion which is 
now prohibited. The design seems to have been 
formed of putting down freedom of thought, and of 
banishing from the South every trace of dissentient 
opinion. A system of espionage has been organized. 
The mail bags have in many states been freely 
opened, and the postmasters of petty villages have 
exercised a free discretion -in giving or withholding 
the documents entrusted to their care. In the 
more southern states vigilance committees have 
been established en permanence. Before these self- 



148 TERRORISM. 

constituted tribunals persons of unblemished reputa- 
tion and inotlensive manners have been summoned, 
and, on a lew days' notice, lor no other offence than 
that of being known to entertain sentiments un- 
lavouiable to slavery, have been banished from the 
state where they resided ; and this in direct viola- 
tion of a specific provision of the Constitution of 
tile United States.* Clerg}^men, wlio have broken 
no law, for merely discharging their duties accord- 
ing to their consciences, have been arrested, thro^\Ti 
into prison, and visited Avith ignominious punish- 
ment. Travellers, who have incautiously, in ignor- 
ance of the intensity of the popular feeling, ven- 
tured to give temperate expression to anti-slavery 
opinions, have been seized by the mob, tarred and 
feathered, ducked, flogged, and in some instances 
hanged. Nay, so sensitively jealous has the feel- 
ing of the South become, that the slightest link of 
connexion with a suspected locality — to have re- 
sided in the North, to have sent one's children to a 
Northern school — is sufficient to secure expulsion 
from a slave state. An abolitionist in the ethics of 
the South is the vilest of all human beings, and 
every one is an abolitionist wlio does not reside in 
a slave state and share to the full tlie prevailing 

• " Tlie citiz«3ns of each state shall be entitled to all the privi- 
leges and immunitios of citizens in the several states." 



TERRORISM. 1 49 

pro-slavery sentiment.* Such is the point which 
civilization has reached under slave institutions. 
At this cost the system is maintained, f 

* It may readily be conceived that Southern intolerance did not 
relax as the great social schism approached its crisis. M. Cucheval- 
Clarigny gives the following vivid sketch of the measures by which 
unionist sentiment was overborne in the South: — " Chaque jour on 
voyait arriver, dans les etats du centre ou de Touest, des gens 
qui avaient 6t6 dunonces comme mal pensans, et qui avaient re9U, 
par lettro anonyme, I'iavitation d'emigrer dans les vingt-quatre 
heures, sous peine de voir leur maison incendiee et de recevoir un 
coup de couteau. Les joumaux de la Nouvelle-Orleans, qui com- 
battaient la separation, furent contraints Tun apr^s 1' autre de cesser 
leur publication ou de changer completement de langage. Dans les 
villes un peu importantes du sud, des bandes armees parcouraient les 
rues, pr^c^dees d'un drapeau avec le palmier, et des menaces de mort 
^taient profi^rees devant les maisons des gens suspects d'attachement 
k r Union. Quand une legislature paraissait h^siter devant un vote 
beUiqueux, on tenait des reunions publiques pour goiu-mander sa len- 
teur, et on lui adressait des objurgations. On ne parlait de rien moins 
en effet dans certains ^tats que de faire voter des mesures d'excep- 
tion, I'emprisonnement ou I'exile des suspects, et la confiscation de 
leurs biens." — Annuaire des Deux Moiides, i860, p. 617, 

t Tlie Reign of Terror in the South, &c. passim ; also Reports of 
the American Anti-Slavery Society, for the years 1857-60. 



150 



CilAPTKU VI. 

EXTERNAL POLICY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

Ix the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made 
to analyze the system of society presented in the 
Slave States, and to ascertain the direction in which, 
uiiikr ordinary circumstances, and in the absence of 
intervention from without, the develof)ment of such 
a system proceeds ; and the result of an examina- 
tion, as well of the several elements of which the 
whole society is composed as of their joint action, 
has been to show that it is essentially retrograde in 
its character, containing within it no germs from 
wliicli improvement can grow, and no forces compe- 
tent to counteract those which press it downwards. 
In the remaining portion of this essay 1 shall endea- 
vour to exhibit the working of this system in the 
politics of the Union ; and as, in relation to the 
people who compose it, the social system of the Slave' 
States has Ijcen seen to be retrograde, so, in relation 
to other societies with which it may come into 
contact, it will be found to be aggressive — to be 
constantly urged by exigencies, which it cannot 
control, to extend its territoiy, and by an ambition 
ii«»t less inevitable to augment its power. 



ITS AGGRESSIVE CHARACTER. 151 

The aggressive character of a social system deriv- 
ing its strength from slavery — that is to say of a 
Slave Power — proceeds primarily from the well- 
known economic fact, already more than once ad- 
verted to — the necessary limitation of slave-culture 
to soils of more than average richness, combined 
with its tendency to exhaust them. It results from 
this that societies based upon slavery cannot, like 
those founded upon free industrial institutions, take 
root, grow, and flourish upon a limited area. To 
secure their vigour, their roots must be always 
spreading. A constant supply of fresh soils of high 
fertility becomes, therefore, an indispensable requi- 
site for the permanent industrial success of such 
societies. This is a fundamental principle in their 
political economy, and one which, we shall find, 
exercises a powerful influence on the course of their 
general history. As the principle will hereafter be 
frequently referred to, it is important to observe 
that it is one about which no controversy can be 
said to exist, being as fully recognized by the up- 
holders as by the opponents of slavery. " There is 
not a slaveholder," says Judge Warner of Georgia, 
" in this house or out of it, but who knows perfectly 
well that, whenever slavery is confined within cer- 
tain specified limits, its future existence is doomed ; 
it is only a question of time as to its final destruc- 
tion. You may take any single slaveholding county 



Ijl EXrANSION A NECESSITY OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 

in the Southern States, in whicli the great staples of 
cotton and sugar are cultivated to any extent, and 
contine tlie present slave population within the 
limits of that county. Such is the rapid natural 
increase of tile slaves, and the rapid exhaustion of 
the soil in tlu- cultivation ot" those crops (which add 
so much to the commercial wealth of the country), 
that in a few years it would be impossible to sup- 
})ort them within the limits of such county. Both 
master and slave would be starved out ; and what 
would be the practical effect in any one county, the 
same result would happen to all the slaveholding 
States. Slavery cannot be confined within certain 
specified limits without producing the destruction of 
l)oth master and slave ; it requires fresh lands, 
plenty of wood and water, not only for the comfort 
and happiness of the slave, but for the benefit of the 
owner."* 

It is further important to observe that the intern- 
al organization of slave societies adapts them in a 
peculiar manner for a career of constant expansion. 
" In free communities ])roperty becomes fixed in 
edifices, in machinery, and in improvements of the 
soil. In slave communities there is scarcely any 
])roperty except slaves, and they are easily movable. 
The freeman embellishes liis home ; the slaveholder 
linds nothinir to bind him to soils which he has 

• J'foi/rtss of tSUittry, l>. 227. 



THEIR EXCLUSIVENESS. I 53 

exhausted. Freedom Ls enterprismg, but not mi- 
gratory as slavery is. It is not in the nature of 
slaver}^ to become attached to place. It is nomadic. 
The slaveholder leaves his impoverished fields with 
as little reluctance as the ancient Scythian aband- 
oned cropped pastures for fresh ones, and slaves 
are moved as readily as flocks and herds."* 

Slavery thus requires for its success a constantly 
expanding field. It is also to be noted that within 
this field it is exclusive of all other industrial sys- 
tems. It is true, indeed, that there exists in certain 
districts through the Slave States a considerable 
free population engaged in regular industry ; but 
this forms no real exception to the essential exclu- 
siveness of slave societies. These settlements of free 
farmers occur only where, from some cause, slavery 
has disappeared from tracts of countrj^ large enough 
to form the abode of distinct societies ; as in West- 
em Virginia, where the exhaustion of the soU, under 
a long continued cultivation by slaves, compelled at 
one time an extensive emigration of planters ; or 
along the slopes of the Alleghanies, where the land 
is better suited to cereal crops than to cotton or 
tobacco ; or, again, in Texas, where the available 
slave force has not been sufficient to enable planters 
to appropriate the vast regions suddenly placed at 
their disposal. In these cases, no doubt, colonies of 

* Progress of .'<lavery, p. 8. 



154 THE RACE OF COLONIZATION. 

free peasants are to be found in the midst of the 
Slave States ; but there is here no real intermixture 
of the two forms of society. The free settlements 
ninain in the Slave States as distinct communi- 
ties* — oases of freedom in tlie vast desert of sla- 
very — w ithout bond of interest or sympathy to con- 
nect them -with the surrounding population. Slave 
society is thus essentially exclusive of all other 
forms of social life.f Now this characteristic of it 
is as well understood by the free population of the 
Northern States, as is the necessity to their system 
of a constantly expanding area by the planters of 
tlie South ; and hence it has happened that, when- 
ever free and slave societies have come into contact 
on the same field, a mutual antagonism has sprung 
up between them. Each lias endeavoured to out- 
strip the other in the career of colonization, and, by 
first occupying the ground, to keep the field open 
for its future expansion against the encroachments 
of its rival. " It has thus," says Mr. Weston, " be- 

• 8('C ( )luistud's account of tlie German settlement in Texiis. — 
A Journey through Texas, pp. 143-146, 176-178, 

t Tliis is not only instinctively felt by the Southerns, but main- 
tain(>(l in theory. The following passage from the Richraond 
/m/uirer is sulliciently cxjilicit : " Two opposite and conflicting 
furiiis of society cannot, among civilized men, co-exist and endui'o. 
The one must give way and coaso to exist ; tho other become uni- 
versal. If free society bo unnatural, immoral, unchristian, it must 
fall, and give way to slave society, a social system old as the world, 
universal as man. " 



MORAL TRAINING OF SLAVE SOCIETIES. 1 55 

come a race whether the negro from Texas and 
Arkansas, or the white labourer from Kansas and 
the free West, shall first reach New Mexico and the 
Gulf of California." 

But it is less in the economic, than in the moral 
and social, attributes of slave societies that we must 
look for the motive principle of their aggressive 
ambition. That which the necessity for fresh soils 
is to the political economy of such communities a 
lust of power is to their morality. The slaveholder 
lives from infancy in an atmosphere of despotism. 
He sees around him none but abject creatures, who, 
under fearful penalties to be inflicted by himself, 
are bound to do his slightest, his most unreasonable, 
bidding. " The commerce between master and slave," 
says a slaveowner, "is a perpetual exercise of the 
most boisterous passions — the most unremitting des- 
potism on the one hand, and degrading submission 
on the other. Our children see this, and learn to 
imitate it. . . . The parent storms, the child looks 
on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the 
same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose 
to the worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and 
daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped 
with its odious peculiarities."* "The first notion," 
says De Tocqueville, " which the citizen of the 
Southern States acquires in life, is that he is born 

* Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 39. 



15^ TENDENCY TO FOSTER AMBITION. 

to eoiiiiiiaiKl, and the tirst habit which he contracts 
is that of being obeyed without resistance." The 
despot mood is thus early impressed on the heart 
of the slaveholder ; and it bears fruit in his manners 
and life. " The existence of a dominant class neces- 
sarily leads to violence. Trained up from youth to 
tlie unrestrained exercise of will, the superior race 
or class naturally becomes despotic, overbearing, and 
impatient. In their intercourse with their inferiors 
this leads to unresisted oi)pression ; but with their 
equals, armed with similar power and fired by the 
same passions, it breaks out into fierce strife. . . . 
In this country the relation of master and slave 
j)roduces the same effect on the character of the 
dominant class as was formerly produced in Europe 
by that of lord and serf. There is the same imperi- 
ous will, the same impatience of restraint, the same 
proneness to anger and ferocious strife. The passions 
which are developed in the intercourse with inferiors 
show themselves, thougli in a diff'erent form, in the 
intercourse with equals. Thus, by an inevitable 
retribution, wrong is made self-chastising, and the 
hand of the violent man is turned against himself. 

" Duelling is not the only form of this national 
])roneness to acts of violence ; rather, it is the modified 
form wliich it assumes among fair and lionourable 
men, who, even in their anger, disdain to take advan- 
tage of an adversary, and wh<» liave at least sufticient 



NARROW SCOPE FOR ITS INDULGENCE. 157 

self-command to give a semblance of reason to their 
passion. There are others, whose hasty impulses 
disdain even this slight self-restraint, who carry with 
them habitually the means of deadly injury, and use 
them on the slightest provocation." ..." The custom 
of carrying arms is at once a proof of proneness to 
violence, and a provocation to it. This habit, I am 
informed, prevails very extensively in the South. 

When coming down the Mississippi, a Colonel B , 

to whom I had been introduced, pointing to a crowd 
of men of all ranks clustered round the cabin stove, 
said : ' Now, there is probably not a man in all that 
crowd who is not armed ; I myself have a pistol in 
my state-room.' "* 

Such are the private influences by which the 
slaveholder is moulded to an intense craving for 
power. And what scope do the institutions of the 
South provide for the satisfaction, on a large theatre, 
of the passion which they generate ? In free societies 
the paths to eminence are various. Successful trade, 
the professions, science and literature, social reform, 
philanthropy, furnish employment for the redundant 
activity of the people, and open so many avenues to 
distinction. But for slaveholders these means of 
advancement do not exist. Commerce and manufac- 
tures are excluded by the necessities of the case. 
The professions, which are the result of much sub- 

* Stirling's Letters from the Slave States, pp. 270, 272. 



138 SLAVERY ITS SOLE RESOURCE. 

division of cinployiiR'nt wliere population is rich 
and dense, can have no pLice in a poor and thinly 
peopled country. Science and literature are left 
^^itll<mt tlic ptiiicipal inducements for their cultiva- 
tion, Avliere thtTe is no field for their most important 
practiral ajjplications. Social reform and pliilan- 
thropy would be out of place in a country where 
Iniman chattels are the principal property. Practi- 
cally, but one career lies open to the Southerner 
desirous of advancement — agriculture carried on by 
slaves. To this, therefore, he turns. In the manage- 
nunt ui" his jjlantation, in the breeding, buying, and 
selling of slaves, his life is passed. Amid the moral 
atmosphere which this mode of life engenders his 
ideas and tastes are formed. He has no notion of 
ease, independence, happiness, w^here slavery is not 
found. Is it strange, then, that his ambition should 
connect itself with the institution around which are 
entwined his domestic associations, which is identified 
with all his plans in life, and which offers him the 
sole chance of emerging from obscurity ? 

But the aspirations of the slaveholder are not con- 
fined witliin the limits of his own community, lie 
is also a citizen of the United States. In the former 
he naturally and easily takes the leading place ; but, 
as a member of the larger society in which he is 
called upon to act in combination with men who 
liave been brought up under free institutions, the 



CONCENTRATION OF AIM. 1 59 

position which he is destined to fill is not so clearly 
indicated. It is plain, however, that he cannot 
become blended in the general mass of the popula- 
tion of the Union. His character, habits, and aims 
are not those of the Northern people, nor are theirs 
his. The Northerner is a merchant, a manufacturer, 
a lawyer, a literary man, an artisan, a shopkeeper, a 
schoolmaster, a peasant farmer ; he is engaged in 
commercial speculation, or in promoting social or 
political reform ; perhaps he is a philanthropist, and 
includes slavery-abolition in his programme. Be- 
tween such men and the slaveholder of the South 
there is no common basis for political action. There 
are no objects in promoting which he can combine 
Avith them in good faith and upon public grounds. 
There lies before him, therefore, but one alternative : 
he must stand by his fellows, and become powerful 
as the assertor and propagandist of slavery ; or fail- 
ing this, he must submit to be of no account in the 
politics of the Union. Here then again the slave- 
holder is thrown back upon his peculiar system as the 
sole means of satisfying the master passion of his life. 
In the society of the Union, no less than in that of 
the State, he finds that his single path to power lies 
through the maintenance and extension of this in- 
stitution. Accordingly, to uphold it, to strengthen 
it, to provide for its future growth and indefinite 
expansion, becomes the dream of his life — the one 



1^)0 PROMOTED BY ANTAGONISM. 

<:reat object of his existence, liiii this is not all : 
this same institution, which is the beginning and 
end of the slaveholder's being, places between hiiu 
and the citizens of free societies a broad and impass- 
able gulf. The system which is the foundation of 
his present existence and future hopes is by them 
denounced as sinful and inhuman ; and he is himself 
held up to the reprobation of mankind. The tongues 
and hands of all freemen are instinctively raised 
against him. A consciousness is thus awakened in 
the minds of the community of slaveholders that 
they are a proscribed class, that their position is one 
of antagonism to the Avholc civilized world ; and 
fhe feelin"; binds them together in the fastest con- 
cord. Their pride is aroused ; and all the energy 
of their nature is exerted to make good their posi- 
tion against those who would assail it. In this 
manner the instinct of self defence and the sentiment 
of pride come to aid the passion of ambition, and all 
tend to fix in the minds of slaveholders the resolu- 
tion to maintain at all hazards the keystone of their 
social order. To establish their scheme of society 
on such broad and firm foundations that they may 
set at defiance the public opinion of free nations, 
and, in the last resort, resist the combined efforts of 
tiieir physical power, becomes at length the settled 
purpose and clearly conceived design of the whole 
body. To this they devote themselves with the zeal 



POSITION OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNIOX. l6l 

of fanatics, with the persistency and secrecy of con- 
spirators. * 

The position of slaveholders thus naturally fosters 
the passion of ambition, and that passion inevitably 
connects itself with the maintenance and extension 
of slavery. Whether this ambition would find 
means to assert itself in the politics of the United 
States might at one time have seemed more than 
doubtful. From the very origin of the Republic 
there were causes in operation which threatened, if 
not vigorously encountered, to exclude the South 
from that influence which it aspired to attain. The 
institutions of the Union are based, in a large degree, 
on the principle of representation in proportion to 
numbers. But, as we saw on a former occasion, the 
social system of the Southern States is ill calculated 
to encourage the growth of population, while the 
institutions of the North peculiarly favour it. On 
the formation of the Federal Union the North and 
the South started in this respect upon nearly equal 
terms ;* and for a while — so long as slave trading 
with Africa was permitted — this equality was ap- 
t 

* In I 790 the numbers were respectively as follows : — 

Free States. Slave States. 

Whites ... 1,900,976 Whites ... 1,271,488 

Free Blacks ... 27,102 Free Blacks ... 3^,354 

Slaves ... 40,364 Slaves ... 657,533 

Total ... 1,968,452 Total ... 1,961,375 



1 62 POSITION OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNION 

proximately inaiiitaiiii'tl. IWit in iSoS tlie African 
slave trade ^fas abolished ; and the principal ex- 
ternal source <>n Avhieh the South relied for recruit- 
in«j: its j)nj)ulaTion was thus cut ofV. On tlic other 
liand, free eniip'ation from Europe continued to 
]M)Ui- into the XorthciMi States in a constantly 
increasing: stream ; while at the same time the 
natural increase of the Northern people, under the 
stimulus friven to early marria*2;es by the great 
indu>trial j»rosperity of the country, was rapid l)e- 
yond precedent. Froni tlic influence of these causes, 
the original ecjuality in numbers between North and 
South was soon converted into a decided preponder- 
ance of the North ; and the natural course of events 
tended constantly to increase the disproportion. 

This state of things, it was obvious, threatened 
ultimately the political extinction of the South, 
incapable as it was of taking part in politics except 
as a distinct interest. At first view, indeed, it might 
seem as if this consummation was not merely 
ultimately inevitable, but imminent. In point of 
fact, however, the South, far from being reduced to 
political insignificance has, throughout the whole 
period tliat has elapsed since the foundation of the 
government, maintained paramount sway in the 
councils of the Union. 

This result, so contraiy to what one might at first 
sight have antici])ated, it is the fashion to attril)nte 



NATURALLY INFERIOR TO THAT OF THE NORTH. 1 63 

to superior capacity for politics among the Southern 
people ; and the theory certainly receives some 
countenance from the fact, that of the illustrious 
men who founded the republic some of the most 
eminent were furnished by the South. It is, however, 
quite unnecessary to resort to so improbable an hypo- 
thesis, as that political capacity is best nourished by 
institutions which tend to barbarize the whole life, 
in order to understand the part taken by the South 
in the politics of the Union. The sufficient explana- 
tion is to be found in two circumstances — in the 
nature of the Federal Constitution, regarded in con- 
nexion with the singleness of aim and steadiness of 
jDurpose, which naturally characterize men whose 
interests and ideas are confined within the narrow 
range permitted by slave institutions. 
/ The Federal Constitution, as is well kno^vn, was a 
compromise between two principles — the democratic 
principle of representation in proportion to numbers, 
and the federal principle of representation according 
to states. In the Lower House of Congress — the 
House of Representatives — the former principle pre- 
vailed ; the several states of the Union sending 
members to this assembly in proportion to the rela- 
tive numbers of their population. In the Senate — 
the Upper House, — on the other hand, representation 
took place according to states — each state, without 
regard to extent or population, being there repre- 



I 64 COMPENSATING FORCES : 

sentcd liv tin- saine minihrr of seiuitors. In the 
election of tIk' I'lvsuU-nt tliese two i)rinciples were 
(•(HiiliiniMl, and the vorin^ power of the several states 
was detenniiujd 1)\- adding to tlie nnnd)c'r of tlieir 
representatives in tlic Lower Ilonse the nnmber of 
their representatives in the Senate — that is to say, 
by the j)rop()rti()n of members which each state 
respectively sent to both Houses. Such was the 
general character of the scheme.* 

In tlie arrangement, as tlius stated, tliere would 
seem to be nothing w hich was not calenhited to give 
to numbers, wealth, and intelligence, tlieir due sliare 
in the government of the country. But in applying 
to the South the principles just described, a provision 
was introduced which had the effect of very materi- 
ally altering, as regards that portion of the Union, 
the popular character of the Constitution. This was 
the clause enacting what is known as the three- 

* The means by which it has been sought to preserve the balance 
between these two principles of the Constitution are thus briefly 
and comprehensively stated in the Federalist: — "The Constitution 
is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a 
composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national ; 
in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government 
are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national ; in the operation 
of these jiowers it is national, not federal ; in the extent of them 
again it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative 
mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor 
wholly national." — .Story <m tJi/- Comtitution of the United States, 
vol. i., p. i(^(j. 



THE THREE-FIFTHS VOTE. 165 

fifths vote. The House of Representatives professed 
to be based on the principle of representation in 
proportion to popuhition ; but, by virtue of this 
clause, in reckoning population slaves were allowed 
to count in the proportion of five slaves to three 
free persons. Now, when we remember that the 
slaves of the South number four millions in a popu- 
lation of which the total is under ten millions, it 
is not difficult to perceive what must be the effect 
of such an arrangement upon the balance of forces 
under the Constitution. In the Presidential election 
of 1856, the slave representation was nearly equal 
to one-third of the Avliole Southern representation ; 
from Avhich it appears that the influence of the 
South in the general representation of the Union 
was, in virtue of the three-fifths vote, nearly one-half 
greater than it would have been had the popular prin^ 
ciple of the Constitution been fairly carried out. But 
the influence of the South, as we formerly saw, 
merely moans the influence of a few hundred thou- 
sand slaveholders ; the whole political power of the 
Slave States being in practice monopolized by this 
body. The case, therefore, stands thus : under the 
local institutions of the Slave States, the slaveholding 
interest — a mere fraction in the whole population — 
predominates in the South ; while, under this provi- 
sion of the Federal Constitution, the South acquires 
an influence in the Union by one-half greater than 



l66 SLTEUIUU CAI'ACITV FUU COMBINED ACTION. 

Uiritiniiitily belongs to it. It is true this would not 
enable tlie Southern States, while their aggregate 
population was inferior to that of the Northern, to 
eoniiiiaiul a niajoritv in the Lower House by means 
ot" thtir own members, Uut we must remember 
that the South is a homogeneous body, having but 
one interest to piomote and one })oliey to pursue ; 
while the interests and aims of the North are vari- 
ous, and its eouncils consequently divided. " The 
seltisli, single-purposed party," says Mr. Senior,* " to 
which general politics are indifferent, which is ready 
to ally itself to Free-traders or to Protectionists, to 
Reformers or to Anti-reformers, to Puseyites or to 
Dissenters, becomes powerful l)y becoming unscru- 
pulous. If Ireland had been an independent coun-| 
try, separated from England, the Ultra-Catholic 
[lartv, whose only object is the domination of the' 
( l(i'g\- and of the Pope, would have ruled her^ 
This is the source of the influence of a similar party 
in France. The Clerical, or Jesuit, or Popish, or 
ritramontane faction — whatever name we give to 
it — lias almost always obtained its selfish objects, 
because those objects are all tliat it cares for. It 
supported the Restoration, its priests blessed the 
insurgents of February, 1848, and it now worships 
Louis Napoleon. The onlv condition whicli it 
make-, is ecclesiastical and Popish supremacy, and 

• Slavery »'» tff United States, pp. 16, 17. 



EQUALITY CONVERTED INTO ASCENDANCY. 1 67 

that condition the governor for the time being of 
France usually accepts. 

" Such a party is the Southern party in the United 
States." Its single aim has been the consolidation , 
and extension of slavery ; and to the accomplisli- 
ment of this end it has always been ready to sacri- 
fice all other interests in the country, and, if neces- 
sary, the integrity of the Union itself. We may see, 
then, in what consists the vaunted aptitude for poli- 
tics exhibited by Southern men : it lies simply in 
the intense selfishness and utter absence of scruple 
with which they have persistently pushed their 
object. They have acted steadily together — a course 
for which no political virtue was necessary where 
there was but a single interest to promote, and that 
interest their own. They have contrived, by an un- 
scrupulous use of an immense patronage, to detach 
from the array of their opponents a section suffi- 
ciently large to turn the scale of divisions in their 
favour : — in other words, they have been successful 
practitioners in the art of political jobbery. Lastly, 
they have worked on the apprehensions and the 
patriotism of the country at large by the constantly 
repeated threat which they have now proved them- 
selves capable of putting in force — of dissolving the 
Union.* 

* " Figurez-vous sur un vaisseau uu houime debout pivs de la 
saiute-barbe, avcc un meche allumee ; il est scul, inais ou lui (jbcit, 



l68 DEMOCKA IK' ALLIANCE: 

The actual iiit'criority in population ot" the South- 
ern to the Northern States, even under the peculiar 
advantage conferred by the tliree-iiitlis clause, ren- 
dered it necessary that tiic slaveholders should pro- 
cure an allv among the Northern people ; and this 
imlispensahle ally they i'onnd in the Democratic 
party. It has been I'requently remarked upon with 
surprise that, in seeking a political connexion, the 
South — whose social and political system is intense- 
ly aristocratic — should have attached itself to that 
j)artv in tiie Union in which the democratic prin- 
ciple has been carried to the greatest extreme. But 
the explanation is to be found in the circumstances 
of the case. The peculiarity of the industrial and 
social economy of the Southern States led them 
from the first to lean to the doctrine of state rights, 
as opposed to the pretensions of the central govern- 
ment ; and the doctrine of state rights is a demo- 

car, a la premierc ddsobc^'issance, il se fera sautcr avec tout Toqui- 
page. Vuila prccisemeiit ce qui se passait en Auidrique depuis 
qu'elle allait a la derive. La manoeuvre dtait commandde par 
rhomme qui tenait la mdclie. ' A la premiere ddsobeissance, nous 
nous quittons.' Tel a dte do tout temps le langage dcs Etats du 
Sud. On les savait capables de tenir parole : aussi n'y avait-il plus 
qu'un argument en Amerique, la scission. ' Eevoquez le compro- 
mis, sinon la scission ; modificz la h^gislation dcs Etats librcs, sinon 
la scissicm ; courez avec nous \vs aventurcs, et entreprcncz des cou- 
(lut'tcs i)our resclavagc, sinon la scission ; enfin, ot par dessus tout, 
lie vous iKTmettez jamais d'clire un pn'sidcnt <pii ne soit pjis nutro 
candiflat, sinoii la nrissiuii,' " — I'li (r'raiul Pniplr i/iii at- nliiv, p. 3/. 



ITS BASIS. 169 

cratic doctrine. On this fundamental point, there- 
fore, the principles of the Southern oligarchy and 
those of the Northern democracy were the same. 
But the alliance was not destitute of the cement of 
interest and feeling. The Democratic party had its 
principal seats in the great towns along the North- 
ern seaboard ; and between the capitalists of these 
to^vns and the planters of the South the commercial 
connexion had always been close. Capital is much \ C 
needed under a slave system, and is at the same 
time scarce. In the Northern cities it was abund- 1 

ant. To the capitalists of the Northern cities, ^ )| 1 
therefore, the planters in need of funds for carrying 
on their industry had recourse ; and a large amount 
of democratic capital came thus to be invested on 
the security of slave property. A community of 
interest was in this way established. But there was 
also a community of sentiment ; for the Northern 
cities had formerly been the great emporia of the 
African slave trade, and had never wholly aban- 
doned the nefarious traffic ; and the tone of mind 
engendered by constant familiarity with slavery in 
its worst form naturally predisposed them to an 
alliance with slaveholders. Widely sundered, there- 
fore, as were the Southern oligarchy and the Demo- 
cratic party of tlie North in general political 
principle, there was enough in common between 
them to form the basis of a selfish bargain. A bar- 



I 70 TERMS OF THE BARGAIN. 

piiii, accnrdiiigly, was struck, of whuh tlic consider- 
ation on tlie one side was the command of the 
Federal government for the extension of slavery, 
and. on tlic <)ther, a slniri' in tlie patronage of the 
riiiun. (.)n these terms a coaliti(jn hctween tliese 
two parties, so opposed in tlicir general tendencies, 
lias, almost iVom the i'ouiidation of the republic, 
been steadily maintained ; and in this way the 
South — vastly inferior thou;ih it has been to its 
competitor in wealth, })opulation, and intelligence — 
in all the conditions to which political power at- 
taclies in well-ordered states — has, nevertheless, con- 
trived to exercise a leading influence upon the policy 
of the Union. 

These considerations will suffice to explain how 
tlie South has been enabled, even when in a minoi-- 
ity, to engage with success the representatives of 
the North. In the Lower House of Congress it 
has been always of necessity in this position ; repre- 
sentation being here in proportion to population, in 
which, even including slaves, the South is inferior 
to its rival. Ihit in the Upper House — the House 
whirh under tlic Constitution enjoys the most ini- 
l)()i-taiir prerogatives and the highest influence — the 
South has found itself at less disadvantage. Tii the 
Scnati', as has been already stated, re])resentation 
takes place according to states ; each state returning 
two members without regard either to tiie niind)er 



TWOFOLD MOTIVE OF SOUTHERN AGGRESSION. I 7 I 

of its inhabitants or to the extent of its territory. 
To maintain itself, therefore, on an equal footing 
Avith the Js^orth in this assembly, the South had only 
need to keep the number of slave states on an 
equality with that of the free ; and this did not 
seem to be beyond its power. For, the tendency of 
slavery being to disperse population, a given num- 
ber of people under a slave regime would naturally 
cover a larger space of country, and consequently 
would afford the materials for the creation of a 
greater number of states, than the same number 
under a regime of freedom. What, therefore, the 
South required to secure its predominance in the 
Senate, was a territory large enough for the creation 
of new slave states as fast as the exigencies of its 
politics might demand them. To keep open the 
territory of the Union for this purpose has, in con- 
sequence, always been a capital object in the politics 
of the South ; and in this way a political has been 
added to the economic motive for extended territory. 
Two forces have thus been constantly urging on the 
Slave PoAver to territorial aggrandisement — the need 
for fresh soils, and the need for slave states. Of 
these the former — that which proceeds from its 
industrial requirements — is at once the most fun- 
damental and the most imperative ; but it has not 
been that which, in the actual history of the United 
States, has been most frequently called into play. 



I 7^ THE ruIJTKAL MOTIVE MAINLY OPERATIVE. 

Ill point ot" iai-t, tlic political inotivL- lias in a great 
iiuasurc supersfded the (.eonoinic. The desire to 
ohtaiii tVcsh territory for the creation of slave 
states, ^vitll a \ ie\v to iiiiliieiice in the Senate, has 
carried the South in its career of aggression far 
bevond the range Avhieli its mere industrial necessi- 
ties would lia\ e presc rilxMl. Accordingly, for nearly 
(juarter of a century — ever since the annexation of 
Texas — the territory at the disposal of the South 
has been very much greater than its available slave 
force has been able to cultivate ; and its most urgent 
need has now become, not more virgin soils on 
wliieh to employ its slaves, but more slaves for the 
cultivation of its virgin soils. The important bear- 
ing of this change on the views of the Slave Power 
w ill hereafter be pointed out : for the present, it is 
sufficient to call attention to the fact. 

A principle of aggressive activity, in addition to 
that which is involved in the industrial necessities of 
slavery, has thus been called into operation by the 
conditi(jns under w liieh the Slave Power is placed in 
the Senate. Ihit we should here be careful not to 
o\errate the iiifliU'iice exercised on that Power by 
its position in the Federal Union. It would, 1 eon- 
ceive, be an entire mistake to suppose that this 
•lesire for extended territory, which, under actual 
(ircumstances, has shown itself in the creation of 
slave states with a view to influence in the Senate, 



TRUE SOURCE OF THIS MOTIVE. I 73 

is in any such sense the fruit of the position of the 
South in the Federal Union as that we should be 
justified in concluding that, in the event of the 
severance of the Union, the South would cease to 
desire an extension of its territory on political 
grounds. Such a view would, in my opinion, imply 
an entire misconception of the real nature of the 
forces which have been at work. The lust of 
dominion, which is the ruling passion of the Slave 
Power, is not accidental but inherent — has its source, 
not in the constitution of the Senate, but in the 
fundamental institution of the Slave States ; and the i 
lust of dominion, existing in an embodied form in a 
new continent, cannot but find its issue in territorial 
aggrandisement. This by no means depends upon 
speculative inference. It admits of proof, as a mat- 
ter of fact, that the projects of the South for extend- 
ing its domain have never been more daring, and 
have never been pushed with greater energy, than 
during the last five years* — the very period in which 
the Southern leaders have been maturing their plans 
for seceding from the Union. The Federal con- 
nexion may have facilitated the ambitious aims of 
the South while the Federal government was in its 
hands, but, far from being the source of its ambition, 
it is because it offers, under the changed conditions. 

See Reports of the American Anti-slavery Society for the years 
1859 and i86o. 



I 74 RELATION OF THE POLITICAL MOTIVE 

iiiipi'diments to the cxpaiulinp; views of the more 
MsitiriiiL'" miiuls of the South, that tlie attempt is now 
iiunle to break h)o.se from Federal ties. Extended 
(K)minion is in truth the very purpose for which the 
South li:is c'li^aLicd in tlir jjresent struggle ; and the 
tlioULilit which HOW sustains it through its fiery 
ordtal is (to ])orrow tlie words of the ablest 
advocate of the Soutliei-n cause) tlie prospect of 
" an empire in the future . . . extending from the 
home of Washington to the ancient palaces of 
Montezuma — uniting the proud old colonies of 
l.ngland with Spain's richest and most romantic 
dominions — combining the productions of the great 
valley of the Mississippi with the mineral riches, the 
nuigical beauty, the volcanic grandeur of Mexico."* 
In j)lain terms, the stake for which the South now 
|)lays is Mexico and the intervening Territories. 

* Spence's Aynerican Union, p. 286. Here for a moment the 
genius of the South is revealed in naked majesty. It is hut for a 
moment. A few pages further on (p. 291) the scene changes, and 
the South is restored to its proper role. AVe have presented to us 
the aspect of a people spuming the idea of conquest, bounding its 
aspirations to tlie lowest recjuirement of free men — the demand for 
autonomy : — " Be our ignorance of the merits of this question ever 
so great, we behold a country of vast extent and large numbers 
earnestly desiring self-government. It thivatens none, demands 
nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to bo 
• let alono.' " 

" Ampliora cccpit 
Institui ; currcnt^^ mta cur urcpus exit ]" 



TO THE FEDERAL POSITION OF THE SOUTH. I 75 

The position of the Slave Power in the Union has 
thus determined the mode, not supplied the principle, 
of its aggressive action. It has brought out into 
more distinct consciousness, and presented in a more 
definite shape, the connexion between the ruling 
passion of the Slave Power and the natural means 
for its*gratification. But the passion and the means 
for its gratification were there independently of the 
political system of the United States ; and the Slave 
Power, with a vast unoccupied or half-peopled terri- 
tory around it, could not have failed under any 
circumstances, in the Union or out of it, to find 
in the appropriation of that territory its natural 
career. 



176 



('HAITKi: VII. 

THE CAREER OF THE SLAVE TOWER. 

The ao-<n*cs.'^iv(' ainliiti<»ii of tliu Southern States has 
hecn traced in tlie last chapter to two principles — 
the economic neces.sities forced upon them by the 
( haracter of their industrial system, and the growth 
of passions and habits, generated by the presence of 
slavery, wITkIi n-cpiire for their satisfaction political 
predominance. In tlie present chapter I propose to 
show how these two principles have operated in the 
actual history of the United States. 

At the time of the establishment of the Federal 
I'nion the position of slavery in North America 
was that of an exceptional and declining institution. 
Many circumstances conspired to produce this re- 
sult. Tlie war of independence had kindled among 
the peoi)le a spirit of liberty which was strongly 
antagonistic to compulsory bondage. In the leaders 
of the revolt this spirit burned with peculiar inten- 
sity ; and though many of them were natives of the 
South and slaveholders, they were almost to a man 
ojtjtosed to the system, and anxious for its abolition. 
From the Northern States, where slavery had origi- 
nally been planted, it was rapidly disappearing. 



POSITION OF SLAVERY AT THE REVOLUTION. 



// 



the unsettled territory then at the disposal of the 
central government — notwithstanding that this terri- 
tory had been ceded to it by a slave state — the 
institution was by an ordinance of the central 
government proscribed. Economic causes were also 
tending to its overthrow. The crops which are 
adapted to slave-cultivation are, as we have seen, 
few in number. Those which at this time formed 
the principal staples of the slave states of the Union 
were rice, indigo, and tobacco. The last was al- 
ready produced in quantities more than sufficient 
for the market ; and in the two former India was 
rapidly supplanting the United States. Sugar was 
not yet grown in the Union. Cotton was still an 
unimportant crop. But it happened that about this 
time several causes came into operation, which in 
their effect completely reversed the direction of 
events, drove back the tide of freedom, and gave to 
slavery a new vitality and an enlarged career. It 
was now that the steam engine, having undergone the 
improvements of AYatt, was first applied on a large 
scale to manufacturing industry. Contemporane- 
ously the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and 
Crompton in cotton spinning had been made. But 
these inventions, momentous as they w^ere, would 
have failed in great part of their effect, had they not 
been supplemented .by another — the invention of the 
■*7-gin by Whitney. Previousl^^ to this invention 



178 RISE OF THK COTTON THADK. 

the only cotton j^rown in America, wliicli was avail. 
al»li' for the freiicral purj)0.ses of commerce, -was that 
Avhich was known as tlie Si'a Ishind kind, Tliis 
was h)nir-fil)rc(l mid oidv jrrew in a frw favoured 
localities. I he luilk of tlie cotton cro]) consisted of 
thr >hortdil)rc'd Aarieties, l)iit the dilliculty oi sepa- 
ratliiLi" tlie seed from the wool in tliis species of the 
plant 1)\ the mctliods then in use, was so great as to 
render it for the ordinary ])urposes of cotton manu- 
facture of little value. It was to overcome this 
dillieult}- tliat Whitney addressed himself; and the 
success of his invention was so complete, that the 
whole American crop came at onee into general 
demand. At the same time, while these causes 
were conducing to a great increase in the general 
consumption of cotton, a vast territory, eminently 
adajDted for the cultivation as well of this as of 
most other slave products, came into the possession 
of the United States. The combined effect of all 
these occurrences was to give an extraordinary im- 
pulse to the cultivation of cotton, and cotton being 
pre-eiiiiiicntly a slave product, and moreover only 
suited to those districts of the United States where 
slavery was already established, this was followed 
by a corresjionding extension of slavery. In a few 
years after AVhitney's invention, tlie exports of cot- 
ton fi-om the United States were decupled ; by the 
yi-:ir 18 10, the}- had l)een multiplied nior(^ than a 



EARLY PROGRESS OF THE PLANTERS. I 79 

hundredfold, and, from being a product of small 
account, cotton rapidly rose to be the principal 
staple of the Southern States. 

The early progress of the Southern planters, under 
the stimulus thus given to their enterprise, attracted 
little observation. To the west of the original slave 
states — Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia — lay 
extensive districts still unsettled, well suited for 
cultivation by slave labour, and too far removed 
from the Free States to be sought as a field for 
free colonization. Over these regions the planters 
rapidly spread themselves. But in 1804 an im- 
mense range of country was gained to the United 
States by purchase from France, which, including 
some of the richest portions of the valley of the 
Mississipi^i, from its junction with the Missouri to 
its mouth, offered equal attractions to settlers from 
both divisions of the Union. This was the Territory 
of Louisiana, out of which the States of Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas have since been 
formed ; and it was here that the rival pretensions 
of the two systems of freedom and slavery first came 
into collision. 

The Territory thus acquired stood, in its relations 
to the Federal government, on precisely the same 
footinsr with a large district known as the North- 
Western Territory, whicli had at an earlier period, 
by cession from Virginia, come into possession of 



8o ACQUISITION OF TlIK LOUISIANA TERRITORY. 

lu' I'nited St;it(s. The frovornnieiit of tliis Terri- 
()r\ had been pruvidcil lur by u celebrated instru- 
iient — tlie ordinance of 1787 — enacted by Congress 
\\\\U' Net constituted unch'T the Artieh's of Confed- 
ration, and bv this instrument involuntary servi- 
ude, except in ])uni>iiinent of crime, was prohibited 
sitliin the Territory. It has been questioned 
whether, in issuing this ordinance while still under 
he Articles of Confederation^ Congress did not 
xceed its proper powers.* The question is, how- 
iver, curious rather than important; for in framing 
he Constitution of the United States an article was 
ntroduced to provide for this very case. By this 
irticle it was enacted that " Congress should have 
)ower to dispose of, and make all needful rules and 
egulations respecting, the Territory or other pro- 
)erty belonging to the United States." There could, 
herefore, be no doubt as to the competency of Con- 
gress, under the Constitution^ to legislate for the 
Perritories; and there was, consequently, no legal 
)arrier to applying to the new acquisition obtained 
rom France the same rule which had liy the ordi- 
lance of 1787 lieen a})plied to the North-AVestern 
ferritory. There were, however, practical diffi- 
:ulties in the way. Slave institutions were already 
ixisting in some ])ortions of the Teri'itory of Louis- 

* Tlie Federalist, No. 38. See Story on Tlit Constitution of the 
United States, vol. i. p. 184. 



MISSOURI CLAIMED AS A SLAVE STATE. I 8 I 

iaiia ; and when the occasion arose for providing 
for the government of the remainder, it happened 
that the attention of the North was fully occupied 
with its foreign relations ; for this was the time 
when those negotiations with England were in pro- 
gress which resulted in the w^ar of 1812. These cir- 
cumstances were favourable to the advances of the 
Slave Power. From the basis of operations supplied 
by the French slave colony at the mouth of the 
Mississippi the planters rapidly carried their insti- 
tution along the western bank of that river. By 
degrees they reached the district which now forms 
the State of Missouri, and by the year 18 18 had 
acquired there so firm a footing as to be enabled 
to claim for it admission into the Union as a slave 
state. 

The admission of Missouri to the Union forms for 
many reasons an epoch in the grand struggle be- 
tween free and slave labour in North America. It 
was on this occasion that both parties appear first to 
have become sensible of the inherent antagonism of 
their respective positions, and to have put forth 
their whole strength in mutual opposition. The 
contest was carried on with extraordinary violence, 
and was terminated by a compromise, which was 
long considered in the light of a national compact 
irrevocably binding on the combatants on both 
sides. The occasion being of this importance, it is 



82 MOTIVES TO tp:kritorial aggrandisement. 

[fsiniblc that wc should appi'cciati- with as much 
•recisiou as possible the stake uliich was at issue, 
lul the motives ^vhich animated the contending 
>arties. 

And liere, thoiiLih at t\[v risk of wearying the 
eader, it mav V)e well once more to repeat that the 
lirirrcssivc character of the Slave Power has been 
raced to two principles — the one economic, proceed- 
ng from the necessity to slavery of a constant sup- 
)ly of fresh soils ; the other political, having its 
oots in that passion for power which the position 
)1' slaveholders — as a dominant race, isolated from 
heir equals, and shut out from the pursuits which 
listribute the energies of free communities into va- 
ious channels — inevitably engenders. Again, it 
las been seen that this latter principle, under the 
Constitution of the United States, exerts itself 
hieilv in tlie effort to increase Southern repre- 
entati(Mi in the Senate through the creation of 
lew slave states. Lastly, it has appeared that the 
vstem of society which slavery produces is in its 
lature an exclusive system — its presence acting as 
I cause of rei)nlsion towards free societies — and 
hat, consecpiently, when thes^' two forms of society 
ome into contact on the same territory, an ine- 
itable antag(mism springs up between them, an 
mtagonism which displays itseli in the efforts which 
hey make to outstrip each other in a race of coloni- 



IMPORTANCE OF MISSOUKI. 183 

zation, each side encleavourmg by prior occupation 
of the soil to exclude its rival and keep open for 
itself a Held for future growth. 

These beino- the principles which governed the 
conflicting interests, we shall find that the stake 
which was at issue in the ^Missouri controversy 
was well calculated to call them actively into 

play. 

The position of Missouri is one of the most com- 
manding in the central portion of North America. 
Possessing great agricultural and mineral resources, 
it is watered by two of the noblest rivers in the con- 
tinent the Mississippi and the ^lissouri. It is in 

the direct line of movement westward from the Free 
States. If established as a free state, it would be- 
come a centre of colonization for the North, from 
Avhich free labour would pour along the valleys of 
the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Arkansas, and 
thence to Northern Texas. On the other hand, if 
occupied by slave institutions, it would cut off the 
natural expansion of the Free States, and turn the 
stream of free emigration in the direction of the 
north-west— to less fertile and less genial regions. 
But the political consequences dependhig upon the 
settlement of this question were not less momentous 
than the industrial and social. When the proposal 
for the admission of Missouri was first brought be- 
fore Congress, the Free and the Slave States were 



1S4 OPPOSITION OF rni; nokih. 

cxiK-tly cijual in iiiuubcr. llic a(.lniis.->iuii of Mis- 
souri as a slave .state would just turn the scale in 
favour of the South, ami, l>y consecjucnce, <:ive it 
a superiority in tlie Senate — a sujieriority, which, 
in conjunction with the advantafres it possessed in 
the Lo^^('r House in \ irtur of its e:ipaeit\' lor eoni- 
i lined aeti<»n, could scarcely i'ail to render it the 
paramount p(jwer in the Union. The success of 
the South, moreover, in this instance, owin;^ to 
the commanding geographical j)osition of Missouri, 
would o])en lor it the path to future conquests ; 
for, hy diverting the stream of Northern emigi-a- 
tion to the north-west, it woidd secure for the future 
use of the Slave Power the vast reach of fertile 
territory lying between that state and Texas — an 
area Avhich comprised some of the richest and 
best watered lands within the domain of the Re- 
])ublic. The terms, therefore, on which Missouri 
should be admitted to the Union became a question 
of prime iuijiortance, in connexion with the pre- 
sent ami liitui-e interests of slave and free institu- 
tions on the continent of North America. 

Accordingly, no sooner was the })i-oposition raised 
for the admission of Missouri to the {'111011 than the 
North rose energetically against the demand, and a 
violent political contest ensuecl. It lasted for nearly 
three years, and was terminated in' the celebrated 
(onqji-omise wiiicli has become a landmark in Ame- 



THE MISSOURI C()MPR(JMISE. 1 85 

rican history. Under tliis settlement Missouri was 
received into the Union as a slave state, on the con- 
dition that in future slavery should not be carried 
north of tlie parallel 36° 30' of north latitude. In 
all essential respects this was a victory for the slave- 
holders. They obtained all that they then desired > 
— the most commanding position in central Ame-\ 
rica, a path to future conquests, a recognised footing l 
in the Territory of the Union ; and in return for this / 
they gave but a naked promise, to be fulfilled at a' 
future time, and which covdd be revoked as easily as 
it was given. Their triumph was slightly qualihed 
by the admission about the same time of Maine as a 
free state, but it was sufficiently complete, and it 
entailed all the consequences which might have 
been, and which were, foreseen to be involved in it. 
From the passing of the Missouri Compromise do^vn 
to the Presidential election of i860 the predomi- 
nance of the Slave Power in the politics of the 
Union has suffered no effectual check. 

The episode of the Seminole war — the next pro- 
minent scene in which the Slave Power figured — 
though sufficiently costly and humiliating to the 
United States, need not detain us here at any length. 
It was little more than a protracted slave-hunt, car- 
ried on Avith circumstances of more than usual 
cruelty, by means of the forces of the Union, against 
the Indians of Florida to whom a multitude of 



1 86 TIIK SKMINOLi: WAi:. 

slaves had escaped. In this war Oceuhi, tlie cele- 
hrnted Indian cWu-W was treaeheroiislv captured hv 
two Annricaii !jtiiL'rals, wliile " lioKling a talk" witli 
tluiii. In this war also the soldiers of the Union 
allowed tlu-nischi's to he disi:i';iccd 1)\- co-operatin<^" 
\\'\\\i Idoodliouiids, inipiiiTiMl inr tin.' pnrp(_)sc' IVoin 
ruha. in liuntinL:" tl<)\\n tln' Indians, The general 
who conmiandcd the I iiion iorccs in this i^"nol)le 
service, and who is said to have lent his sanction to 
these atrocities, was Genei-al Zachary Taylor, after- 
wards rewarded for his zeal in the cause of the Slave 
Power by elevation to the Presidency. The war 
lasted seven years, cost the country, it is estimated, 
40.000,000 dollars, and resulted in the capture of 
a few hundred slaves. 

It' the Seminole war k-d to no important ronlts, 
it was far otherwise A\ith the annexation of Texas. 
This transaction has long passed into a hyewoi-d for 
unprovoked and unscrui)idous plunder of a weak by 
a strong power. The designs of its authors have 
always ))een notoriinis. Still, as affording a ty})ical 
example of a mode of aggression which has since 
been iVecjuentU' eniplo\i'(l and is probably not \et 
obsolete, it ma\- be well to i-eeall some of its leadiuLr 
incidents at the ]»i'e>ent time. 

Texas, as all the ^\(l^ld knows, was before its 
annexation to the I'nion a pi-o\inei- of .Mexico — 
a counli'N at peace with the I nion. and anxious 



DESIGNS UPON TEXAS. 1 87 

to cultivate with it friendly relations. Mexico, 
however, was a Aveak state, still fresh from the 
throes of revolution. The district in question was 
one of great fertility, possessing in this respect, 
as well as in its climate and river communications, 
remarkable advantages for slave settlement : it was, 
moreover, but very thinly peopled, and was separated 
by an immense distance from the seat of govern- 
ment. So early as 1821, while Spanish authority 
was still maintained in Mexico, three hundred fami- 
lies from Louisiana were permitted to settle in this 
tempting region, under the express condition that 
they should submit to the laws of the country. By 
this means a footing was obtained in the district. 
The original immigrants were in time followed by 
others, Avho like their predecessors undertook to 
conform to the laws of Mexico ; and for some years 
the proceedings of the new settlers were conducted 
with proper respect for the authority of the state in 
which they had taken up their abode. But this 
aspect of affairs did not long continue. As the 
colony increased in numbers and wealth, it became 
evident to the slaveowners of the neighbouring 
states that they had a "natural right" to the 
territory. It offered an admirable field for slave 
cultivation ; it was in their immediate proximity ; 
of all claimants they were the strongest and " smart- 
est : " in short, they wanted the country, and felt 



l88 MKIIIUU of I'KOCEEDIXG. 

tht-'inselves able to take it ; and they resolved it 
should ])e theirs. "MaiiitL'st destiny" beekoued them 
forward, and tliuy prepared, with reverent siilj- 
mission to the deerees ol" rro\idenee, to I'ullil their 
fate. 

The ao^enev b\- wliidi the annexationists proceeded 
to give effect to their natural riLdit was land specu- 
lation. Grants of extensive districts were corruptly 
obtained from local bodies which had no competency 
to make them ; these were made the l)asis for a 
creation of scrip, which was thrown in lar^e quanti- 
ties upon the markets of the United States. To give 
an idea of the scale on which these transactions were 
carried on, one grant, obtained from tlie legislature 
of Coahuila, conveyed in ])erpetuity to American 
citizens, in direct violation of tlie laws of Mexico, 
no less than fnir hundred square leagues of the 
public land — an area as large as Lancashire — for a 
consideration of 20,000 dollars ! In addition to 
transactions of this kind, a manufacture of titles 
purely fictitious was freely carried on. By this 
means great numbers of the people in tlie United 
States became tlie possessors of nominal titles to 
land in Texas — titles, wliicli. being of eourse uiire- 
cosrnized 1>\' the central auiIioi-it\- in .Mexico, could 
only be substantiated by setting aside that authority. 
" Texan independence could ahuie legalize the 
might}- frauds of the land s[)eculators, Texas must 



VIEWS OF THE ANNEXATIONISTS. 189 

be wrested from the country to which she owed 
allegiance, that her soil might pass into the hands 
of cheating and cheated foreigners." 

But the motive of rapacity was reinforced by a 
stronger one. Mexico from the moment of her 
independence had shewn a creditable determination 
to uphold the most essential of human rights. By a 
law, passed shortly after her severance from Spain, 
slavery was abolished in her dominions, and pro- 
hibited for all future time. Such a law was far 
from being in keeping with the views of the new 
settlers. Accordingly, they proceeded to evade it by 
various artifices. The most usual expedient was 
that of introducing slaves into the country under 
the guise of apprentices, the term of whose service 
commonly extended to ninety-nine years. On the 
point, however, of maintaining freedom of labour in 
their dominions, the Mexican authorities were in 
earnest, and the move of the settlers was met by 
a decree of the legislatures of Coahuila and Texas, 
annulling all indentures of labour for a longer 
period than ten years, and providing for the freedom 
of children born during apprenticeship. But slave- 
holders were not to be so baffled. " The settled 
invincible purpose of Mexico to exclude slavery 
from her limits created as strong a purjDose to 
annihilate her authority. The project of dismem- 
bering a neighbouring republic that slaveholders 



190 TEXAS AXNEXKl). 

and slaves iniglit overspread a region whieli had 
been conseerated to a free population, was discussed 
in the newspa])ers as coolly as il" it were a matter of 
o1)\i()Us right and uiKjUeStioned iiuiiiaiiity."* The 
plot lia\Iug been ( ari'icd to this point, the e()nsuni- 
niation of the pliimli'i" was easy. A conspiracy was 
hatched ; a ri-hcHinii organi/cd ; filibusters were 
introduced iVoin the borih'T states; and a popula- 
tion, which at the eoniniencement of the outbreak 
did not number twenty thousand ])ersons, asserted 
its independence, was recognized by the Federal 
Government, and with little delay annexed to the 
Union. 

The annexation of Texas was too successful a 
stroke oi polic\- not to l)e regarded as a precedent. 
It was accordingly fdlowed by the Mexican war 
of 1846, which resulted in an easy victory over 
an unequal antagonist. By the treaty concluded 
between the United States and ^lexico in 1848, the 
immense range of country, extending from Texas 
to the Pacific in one direction, and from the present 
frontier of Mexico to the Territory of Oregon in the 
other, and iinduding the magnificent prize of Cali- 
fornia, was added to the domain of the r?ei)ublic. 
'i'he dis])osal of this ojiulent sj)oil became at once a 
subject of overwhelnung interest, and lor two years 
the Union was shaken by the contests ^\lli(•]l it i)i-o- 

* Cliaiiuing's Wmks, LUIt on I't.riis. 



MEXICAN WAR DIVISION OF THE SPOIL. 191 

duced. The point on which tlie immediate interest 
centred was California. AYas it to be a free or a 
slave state ? The Southern ^^arty which had forced 
on the "war had no other intention than to appro- 
priate this, its richest fruit ; but the discovery of 
gold in the alluvial sands of the Sacramento, just 
at the time when the annexation was accomplished, 
had attracted thither from the North a large pre- 
ponderance of free settlers, and these pronounced 
loudly for free institutions. The question was 
settled, as so many similar questions had been 
settled, by a compromise. The Slave party con- 
sented to waive its claim, l)ut not without stipu- 
lating for a concession in return. The admission of 
California as a free state was purchased by the 
Fugitive Slave Law.* The price was a shameful 
one ; yet it seems certain that this transaction forms 
an exception to the ordinary course of dealing be- 
tween the Slave Power and its opponents, and that 
in the event the balance of advantage lay largely 
with the Free States. The Fugitive Slave Law 
has been for the Slave Power a questionable gain. 
Amongst its first fruits was Uncle Tom's Cabin. On 
the other hand, the acquisition of California has 
been- a solid advantage for the free party. A free 

* To "wliicli the opponents of slavery contrived to add a bill for 
tlie exclusion of the slave market from the District of Columbia. 
The same series of measures also included bills for the settlement 
of the Territories of Utah and New Mexico. 



H.J1 STATK OF I'AIMIKS IN 1850. 

State has tliiis been establislied in the rear of tlio 
Slave Power, a centre liencet'orward for free immi- 
gi'ation, an<l probably destined at no distant time 
to phiy an unportant part in the stru^^gle Ijetween 
the rival j)rineiples. 'J'luis, by the accident of a gold 
discovery, tiie well laid jdans of the Slave party 
Were frustrated, and a war wliicli was undei'takcn 
by slaveholders in the interest of slavery has 
eventuated in a serious blow to their power. 

The difterences arisiiiLi" out of the conquests made 
in the Mexican war having been adjusted by the 
compromises of 1850, the Slave Power was again 
at liberty to look around it and to meditate 
new acquisitions. The Territor}^ which had fallen 
to slavery under the ^lissouri Compromise had 
now bt'cn aj)})ropriated ; Florida had also been 
acquired ; Texas had been annexed ; New Mexico 
lay open, but for the present it was too distant for 
settlement, and the numerous tribes of Indians 
which inhabited it made it an undesirable abode for 
slaveholders, whose experience in Florida naturally 
rendered them averse to such neighbours. ]jut the 
territory of Kansas and Nebraska was comparatively 
close at'hand, and was inviting from its fertility and 
salubrity. On politiral grounds, moreover, there 
was need that the Sla\e Powht sliould Ix^tir itself. 
The occasion was not uidike tliat which hatl ])re- 
Cedcd the admission of .Mi>soui'i to tlif I'nion. l-'rom 



DESIGNS UPON KANSAS. 1 93 

the passing of the Missouri Compromise down to the 
year 1850 the balance between the Free and Slave 
States had been fairly preserved. The North had 
during that time acquired Michigan, Iowa, and 
Wisconsin ; the South, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas ; 
the natural expansion of the one section had been 
steadily counterpoised by the factitious annexations 
effected by the other. But the admission of Cali- 
fornia as a free state had disturbed this equili- 
brium. To restore it there was need of a new 
slave state ; and where could this be more con- 
veniently placed than in the rich contiguous Ter- 
ritory of Kansas ? 

But to the realization of this scheme there was an 
obstacle in the way. The Territory of Kansas was 
part of the great tract obtained by purchase from 
France in 1804, and being north of the line traced by 
the Missouri Compromise, was therefore by the terms 
of that measure withdrawn from the field of slave set- 
tlement. Now, the Missouri Compromise was some- 
thing more than an ordinary legislative act. It was 
a compact between two great opposing interests, in 
virtue of which one of those interests obtained at the 
time valuable consideration on the condition of ab- 
staining from certain pretensions in the future. It 
was, moreover, eminently a slaveholders' measure. 
" It was first brought forward by a slaveholder — vin- 



194 OBSTRUCTEn HY TlIK MISSOIHI COMPROMISE. 

dicatcd liy slaveholders in debate — tintdly sanctioned 
by slaveholdinf]^ votes — also upheld at the time by 
the essential a))i)r()l)ati<)n of a slaveholding Presi- 
(k-nt, James Munroe, and his cabinet, of Avhom a 
majority were slaveholders, including Mr. ("alhoun 
himself."* The measure was thus binding on the 
Slave Party by every consideration of honour and 
good faitli. lint lioiioui* and good faith have always 
proved frail bonds in restraining the ambition of the 
Slave Power. The ^lissouri Compromise had served 
its end. Under it the most commanding central 
position in the continent had been secured. Under 
it Arkansas had been added to the slave domain. 
There was nothing more to be gained by maintain- 
inf> it. The plea of unconstitutionality, therefore, — 
" like the plea of usury after the borrowed money 
has been enjoyed" — was set up. In passing the 
Missouri Compromise Congress was said to have ex- 
ceeded its competence. It was not for it to " legis- 
late " freedom or slavery into the Territories. This 
was a question to be determined by the inhabitants 
of those Territories, whose right it was to "regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way." Ac- 
cordingly, in 1854, a bill known as tlie Kansas and 
Nebraska P)ill was iiitrothiccd by .Mr. Douglas, a 
Northern deiiiocnir and ;iii :ispir;mt to the Presi- 
dency. By this l)ill the .Missoiii-i (-ompromise was 

• Sumner's Speech. 



THE KANSAS AND NEBRASKA BILL. I 95 

abrogated, and in its place a principle was estab- 
lished, popularly kno^vn as that of "squatter sove- 
reignty," by which it was resolved that the future 
settlement of the Territories should be determined. 
The principle is thus described in the words of the 
act : — " It being the true intent and meaning of this 
act not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, 
nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
to the Constitution of the United States." By this 
plausible measure — plausible because it appeared to 
extend to the settlement of the question of slavery 
the democratic principle which was acknowledged 
as the basis of the general government — the incon- 
venient restraints of the Missouri Compromise were 
got rid of, and the ground was cleared for the opera- 
tions of the Slave Power. 

Meanwhile, however, the North, aroused by the 
discussions which had taken place to a sense of the 
importance of the crisis, was preparing to try issues 
with its opponent on the ground which it had chosen. 
On the 30th of May, 1854, the territory of Kansas 
was by Act of Congress thro^vn open to settlers ; 
and at once from all quarters of the Free States 
crowds of emigrants flocked to the debatable land. 
The, work of settlement was pushed with character- 
istic ardour. The land was rapidly cleared ; culti- 

13* 



196 KANSAS THl{i»NVN OPKN FOli SETTLEMKNT, 

vation was coinmenced ; tlic foundations of towns 
were marked out: tlu- wliole country glowed with 
the bustle of colonizing activit}-. In a few months 
the free settlers had acquired a decided preponder- 
ance over their rivals in the new territory ; and all 
things seemed to promise — the will of the inhabi- 
tants being tlie arbiter of the question — that Kansas 
would ere long be peaceably enrolled in the Union 
as a Free State. P>ut tlie Slave Power had other 
resources in store. It could not, and [jrcjbabl}^ did 
not, hope to triumph on a fair held in a coloniza- 
tion struggle with the North. In all the quali- 
fications requisite for such a struggle the North was 
immeasurably its superior. It had at its disposal 
a vastly larger population, and this population, 
energetic, intelligent, and enterprising, was in all 
essential respects far better adapted to the work in 
hand than any which the South could bring against 
it. But it was not by fair means that the South 
hoped to attain its ol>ject. Kansas adjoined ]\Iis- 
souri. In Missouri, as in all the Slave States, there 
was a mean wdiite population — a population utterly 
unlit for the work of colonization, but well (iualified 
and well disposed to take part in any expedition 
which promised rapine and blood. It was on the 
services of this people that the Slave Power relird 
for tlie success of its scheme. It could not out- 
colonize tlie freesoilers iVom the North, but it 



PREPARATIONS OF THE SLAVE POWER. 1 97 

could, it was hoped, make the territory too hot to 
hold them, and ultimately, being left master of the 
field, it might occupy it at leisure. This, however, 
was not its only resource. In the government at 
Washington it had a sure ally, which, though af- 
fecting to disapprove, could be depended upon to 
connive at, and when necessary to sustain, its law- 
less proceedings. Resting upon these supports, the 
Slave Power took its measures. It was necessary, 
in the first place, that a staff of functionaries should 
be appointed for the Kansas territory. Of these the 
nomination lay with the President, and needed to 
be confirmed by the Senate. But the President was 
the nominee of the South, and in the Senate the 
South was all-powerful. There was, therefore, no 
difficulty in securing officials on whom the South 
could thoroughly rely. Meantime preparations were 
made for active operations. Bands of border ruf- 
fians were mustered on the Missouri frontier, and 
held in leash to be let slip at the decisive moment. 
That moment at length arrived. On the 29th of 
November, 1854, the infant Territory was to elect a 
delegate to appear and speak in its behalf in the 
National Congress. On that day the myrmidons of 
slavery, led by experienced filibusters from the 
South, rushed upon the scene, seized by force upon 
the ballot-boxes, and crushed all free action among 
the inhabitants. On the 30th of j\Iarch following 



198 INVASIUN UF THE TEUKITOKY. 

tlic Territorial K-L^islature was to be chosen. The 
invasion -was repeated on a lar^aT scale and with a 
more (•oni])lete ori:aniz;ition. Armed viok'iicr was 
innv rcdiu-ed to system. A'lain and a^ain were 
these raids renewed with circumstances of ever-in- 
creasing atrocity, turninir the Constitution into a 
mockery — a pliant instrument in the iiajids of a 
reckless faction, liidei- these auspices the elections 
were held. The result was the return, by a popula- 
tion of whom the [ireat majority were freesoilers, 
of a pro-slavery delegate, the erection of a pro- 
slavery legislature, and the promulgation of a pro- 
slavery constitution. 

Some of the provisions of this strange instrument 
deserve to be recorded. Taking the law^s of their 
own state as their model, the invaders, in the first 
place, re-enacted in the gross the code of Missouri. 
i*>iit more stringent measures than the Missourian 
code contained were required to meet the present 
emergency. Accordingly, all persons holding anti- 
slavery opinions were by a single stroke disfran- 
chised, < )n the other hand — the object being to 
rule the territory through the armed rabble of 
Missouri — it was enacted that every one might vote, 
whether resident or not, wlio, holding oj)iiiions 
favoui'alile to slavery, slioiiM ]ia\' one dollar on tiie 
day of election, and swear to iiphohl the lugitivo 
Sh'i\e I,;i\v and the Xfbraska IVill. The ideas wITk li 



THE LEAVENWORTH CONSTITUTION. 1 99 

the Slave Power entertained on the subject of free- 
dom of the press may be gathered from one enact- 
ment, which provided that the advocacy of anti- 
slavery opinions should be treated as felony, and 
punished with imprisonment and hard labour ; while 
its notions of lenity are illustrated by its mode of 
dealing with the offence of facilitating the escape of 
slaves. Against this — of all crimes in the ethics 
of the Slave Power the most heinous — and against 
other modes of attacking slave property, the penalty 
of death was denounced no less than forty-eight 
different times. 

Such was the mild and liberal spirit of the Leaven- 
worth Constitution. Once promulgated, it became 
necessary to carry it into effect ; and the means 
adopted for this purpose were in keeping with all 
which had gone before. Tlie country was given 
over to be dealt with by the invaders at their 
pleasure.* Gangs of these armed ruffians, making 
no pretence of being settlers, having no other 
means of support than pillage, patrolled the coun- 
try, " preserving," so it was phrased in Congress, 
" law and order." The Federal functionaries, mean- 
while, looked on in silence, contenting themselves 
with ratifying the Constitution Avhich had been 
passed ; while the Federal troo})S, by abstaining 
from all interference with the apostles of " order," 

* General statements fail to convey any idea of tlie atrocities 



200 ATUUCITIKS OF Tilt: BUKDEH RUFFIANS. 

and, when necessary, l)y overawing the disaffected, 
proved useful allies of the movement. 

J^V such means the Slave Power succeeded in 
establishiuii: itself in ]\ansas; but its rei^rn was brief. 
The atrocities it had (omniitted roused a spirit for 

whioli were comniittod. The following anecdote is told by Mr. 
Tliomii.s K. Glailstoue — au Englisliuuiu who visited Kansas dur- 
ing the time of the disturbances — in his work entitled Karisas ; or 
Squattt^' Life and Border ]Varfare in tlie Far West : — 

" Individual instances of barbarity continued to occur almost 
daily. In one instiince, a man, belonging to General Atchiuson's 
camj), made a but of six dollars against a pair of boots that he would 
go and return with an Abolitionist's scalp within two hours, lie 
went forth on horseback. Before ho had gone two miles from 
Leavenworth on the road to La\vTence, he met a IMr. Hops, driving 
a buggy. Mr. Hops was a gentleman of high respectabUity, who 
had come home with his ■wife, a few days p^e^^ously, to join her 
brother, the Rev. Mr. Nute of Boston, who had for some time been 
labouring as a minister in Lawrence. The ruffian asked ^Ir. Hops 
where he came from. He readied he was last from Lawrence. 
Enough ! The ruffian drew his revolver, and shot him through the 
head. As tlie body fell from the chaise, he dismounted, took his 
knife, scalped his victim, autl then returned to Leavenworth, where, 
having won lii-s boots, he i)ar;nkHl the streets with the bleeding 
scidp of the murdered man stuck upon a pole. This was on the 
J 9th of August. Eight days later, when the widow, who had been 
left at Lawrence sick, was brought down by the Rev. !Mr. Nute, in 
the hope of recovering the body of her murdered husband, the whole 
party, consisting of about twenty persons in five waggons, was 
seized, robbed of all they hail, and placed in confinement. One was 
shot the next day for attempting to escape. The widow and one or 
two others were allowed to depart by steamer, but penniless, A 
German incautiously condemning the outrage was shot ; and an- 
other saved his life only by precipitate flight' 



REACTION DEFEAT OF THE SLAVE POWER. 20 I 

which the South was not prepared. Tlie settlers, 
finding themselves betrayed by the government 
Avhich should have protected them, rose in arms. 
The injuries to which they had been exposed only 
fixed them in the resolution to defend the country 
which was rightly theirs ; and the story of their 
wrongs, being carried to the North, excited there a 
feeling which brought flocking to their assistance 
crowds of freemen. The efforts of the Slave party, 
though violent, were fitful ; those of the Free settlers 
were resolute and sustained. After a desultory 
civil war, the former was utterly defeated, the 
pro-slavery constitution was overthrown, and a free 
legislature and free institutions were established. 

Such was the result of the experiment of" squat- 
ter sovereignty" in the Territories. After a long 
career of success, the South had at length been 
forced to give way, and to abandon a design which 
it had deliberately formed. But the defeat in 
Kansas Avas not an ordinary reverse. It could be 
attributed neither to remissness nor to fortune. 
The South had brought into action all its available 
strength, and the contest had been fought under 
conditions which it had itself prescribed. It had 
selected its own ground ; it had taken its opponents 
by surprise ; it had not hesitated to employ every 
means, legal and illegal, in the prosecution of its 
end ; in all its measures it had been powerfully sus- 



202 A LAIC M IN THE NORTH. 

taiiietl by tlie (•( iitr:il jrovernment ; aiul yet, with 
all these atlvaiitages, it had been utterly defeated. 
The exiierimciit was a1)Solutelv deeisive ; and it Avas 
lieneetbrth eertain that, with the resourees at jtre- 
sent at the disposal of the two parties, slaveholders 
were no match in the work of colonization for the 
freemen of the North. 

'J'his was a serious result for a community for 
which territorial expansion was a necessity of pros- 
pci-ous existence. Ihit the crisis assumed a still 
graver aspect from the movements of ]>olitieal par- 
ties to which the events in Kansas led. These 
events brought home to the Northern people with 
irresistible force the real aims and character of the 
powci' to wliosc domination it had submitted. It 
was not sinii)ly that the South in Kansas sought to 
extend the area of slavery — this was a familiar fact ; 
it was tliat in })rosccuting this object it had shown 
itself prepared to perpetrate any atrocity, any i)er- 
tidy ; it was that, in promoting its ambitious 
schemes, it had turned with utter unscrupulousness 
those powers of government, with whicli it had 
been entrusted for the general good, to the pur- 
pose of crushing tlie liberties and taking away the 
lives of those who dared to thwai-t it. A feeling of 
profound indignation, mingled with alarm, pervaded 
the })eople of the I'ree States. It was felt that the 
time had come \\lieii all who were- not content to 



FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 203 

yield themselves up to the tender mercies of this 
unscrupulous and wicked Power should take mea- 
sures for their safety. A strong reaction set in, and 
the earliest fruit of the reaction was the formation 
of the Republican party. 

The policy of this party was first given to the 
■world by a manifesto issued in the summer of 1856. 
The Republican party, it was declared, had no pur- 
pose to interfere with slavery in the states where it 
w^as already established. Within those limits it had 
been recognized by the Constitution, and to trans- 
cend constitutional bounds was no part of the Re- 
publican programme. But it Avas denied that the 
authority of Congress, or of any other power in the 
Union, so long as the present Constitution was 
maintained, could give legal existence to slavery in 
any Territory of the United States. The fundamen- 
tal principle of the party Avas thus the non-extension 
of slavery. Taking its stand on this ground, it 
invited the co-operation of all who were opposed to 
the dominion of the Slave Power, asking them to 
lay aside past political differences and divisions, and 
by one grand effort to rescue the country from the 
rule of the common foe.* 

This Avas in the summer of 1856. In the autumn 
of the same year the Presidential election gave occa- 

* See the Republican platform adopted at Philadelphia, June 1 8, 
1856. 



204 I-'IRST TKIAL OF STRENGTH OF THE NEW I'AUTY. 

sioii tor tliL' first trial of stivnn^tli between the new 
party and its opponents. The contest occurred 
wifliin a few months fi'oni the time when the first 
idea of a partv on the basis indicated had been 
formed, and before its leaders had had time to 
complete its organization. As might have been 
expected, it was defeated, but under circumstances 
"which insj)ired the strongest hope of ultimate vic- 
tory. '' Tlu' ncpiiblicans," said the central associ- 
ation at Washington, addrcNsing the country after 
the event of the election, '' wherever able to present 
clearly to the public the real issues of the canvass — 
slavery restriction, or slavery extension — have car- 
ried the people with them by unprecedented majori- 
ties, almost breaking up in some States the organ- 
ization of their adversaries," . . . . " Under 
circumstances so adverse, they have triumphed in 
eleven, if not twelve of the Free States, i)re-eminent 
for enterprise and general intelligence, and contain, 
ing one half of the whole population of the coun- 
try." ,...'' ^^'e know," continued this body, 
" the ambition, the necessities, the schemes of the 
Slave Power. The policy of extension, aggrandise- 
ment, and universal empire is the law of its being, 
not an accident — is settled, not fluctuating. Covert 
or open, moderate or exti'eme, according to circum- 
stances, it never changes in s])iiir oi- aim." . 
" The true course of tin- IJcpulilicaii pai-t\' is to 



HOPEFUL PROSPECTS. 205 

organize promptly, boldly, and honestly upon their 
OAvn principles, and, avoiding coalitions with other 
parties, appeal directly to the masses of all parties 
to ignore all organizations and issues which would 
divert the public mind from the one danger that 
now threatens the honour and interests of the 
country, and the stability of the Union." 

The long ascendancy of the Slave Power in the 
Union was thus at length seriously threatened, and 
on its ascendancy depended its existence as a Power. 
The leaders of the South were not slow to appreci- 
ate the critical nature of their position. With a 
boldness and practical sense characteristic of men 
long and successfully conversant with the affairs of 
government, they looked the danger in the face, 
and, perceiving that the emergency w^as one in 
which ordinary expedients would be unavailing, 
they resolved upon a policy of " Thorough ;" and, 
without hesitation or compunction, advanced straight 
to their object. 

The real cause of the defeat of the South in the 
Kansas struggle it was not difficult to discover. It 
lay in the want of a population adapted to the pur- 
pose in hand — slavery colonization. The South had 
conquered the ground, but, owing to the insuffi- 
ciency of its slave force, it had been unable to hold 
it, and the result was its defeat. The remedy, 
therefore, was plain. It would be necessary to 



2o6 SOUTHERN POLICY OF " THOROUGH." 

increase the slave force of tlic South in such a man- 
ner as to ]>ut it on a par in point of disposable 
population witli its Xortlicrn rival, and, meantime, 
pcndin;:; thi' accomplislinunt of this result, to lind 
means to maintain a footin<!; in the Territories in 
spite of the legislation of tlie freesoilers. Such was 
the j)rohlem proposed to tlie South. Nothing short 
of tliis would enable the Slave Power to keep open 
the Territories for its future expansion, and to 
retain its hold on tlie Federal Government. No- 
thing short of this would give it predominance in 
the Union. There was need, therefore, of " Tho- 
rough." It resolved to give effect to this policy in 
in all its fulness, or, failing this, to dissolve the 
Union. 

With a view to the first point — the augmentation 
of the supply of slave labour — the obvious, and the 
only adequate, expedient was the reopening of the 
African Slave Trade. That ti'ade had been prohi- 
bited by an act of Congress in 1808, and the prohi- 
bitioti had, up to the present time, been acquiesced 
in by all parties. But, like every other enactment 
which stood in the way of the freest development of 
slavery, this prohibition was now discovered to be 
' unconstitutional.' Congress had, it seemed, ex- 
ceeded its proper ])owers in passing the act. It was, 
accordingly, determined that an agitation should 
forthwith be set on foot for its re[)eal. 



REVIVAL OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 207 

The first blast of the trumpet announcing the new 
policy was sounded by Governor Adams of South 
Carolina in his address to the legislature of that 
state in 1857, The obnoxious prohibition was de- 
nounced in vehement terms. It was a violation of 
the Constitution, and it interfered with the essential 
interests of the South. By the closing of the 
African slave trade the equilibrium between North 
and South had been destroyed, and this equilibrium 
could only be restored in one way — by the re- 
opening of that trade. Let this once be accom- 
plished — let the South have free access to the only 
labour market which is suited to her wants — and she 
has no rival whom she need fear. 

The key-note having been struck, the burden of 
the strain was taken up by other speakers, and the 
usual machinery of agitation was put in motion 
through the South. The Southern press freely dis- 
cussed the scheme.* It was brought before the 

* The Charleston Standard, complaining that the position of the 
Sonth had hitherto been too much one of defence and apology, adds, 
" To the end of changing our attitude in the contest, and of plant- 
ing our standard right in the very faces of our adversaries, we 
propose, as a leading principle of Southern poKcy, to reopen and 
legitimate the slave trade." And it then proceeds, in a series of 
articles, to argue at length the rightfulness and expediency of this 
measure, expanding and elaborately enforcing the following pro- 
positions, viz. : — " That equality of states is necessary to equality of 
power in the Senate of the Union ; that equality of population is 
necessary to equality of power in the House of Eepresentatives ; 



2o8 AGITATION FOR KKOPENING 

atmiKil coDvciitioiis (or tlu* considi-raticm of South- 
ern allairs, and received the energetic support of the 
K-adc-rs of the extreme Soutliern j)arty.* At one of 

that we cannot expand our labour into the Tonitories without de- 
creasing it in the Stiites, and wliat is gained upon the frontier is lost 
at the centres of the institution ; that pauper white labour will not 
come into competition with our slaves, and, if it did, that it would 
not increase the integrity and strength of slavery, and that, there- 
fore, to the equaUty of influence in the Federal legislature there is 
a necessity for the slave trade." 

* Mr. Yancey has denied this in a letter to the Daily News, and 
declared that ho " does not know two pulilic men in the South, of 
any note, who ever" advocated the restoration of the trade, and that 
" the people there are and have been almost unanimously opposed 
to it." It is unnecessary to reopen a question which has been dis- 
posed of, and I therefore refer the reader, who wishes to ascertain 
the authenticity of Mr. Yancey's statement, to the Daily Nervs of 
the 27th and 28th January, 1862. One or two specimens, how- 
ever, may be given of the views of Southern politicians upon this 
subject. The Hon. L. W. Spratt of Georgia, in a speech at Savan- 
nah in favour of the African slave trade, thus expressed liimseK : — 
" The iirst reason for its revival is, it wiD give political power to 
the Soutli. Imported slaves will increase our representation in the 
national legislature. More slaves will give us more states ; and 
it is, therefore, within the power of the rude untutored savages we 
bring from Africa to restore to the South the influence she has lost 
by the sujipression of the trade. \Ye want only that kind of popu- 
lation which will extend and secure our peculiar institutions, and 
there is no other source but Africa." 

Mr. A. II. Stephens, the pn'.sent Vice-]iresident of the Southern 
Confederation, has thus pointedly put the argument for the opening 
of the trade : — " \Vo can divide Texas into five slave states, and get 
Chihuahua, Sonora, &c. if wo have the slave population, and it is 
plain tliat xnilcss the nunifxr of African stock be inci-eased, we have 
not the population, and might as well abandon the race with our 



THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE. 209 

these conventions held at Yieksburgh, Mississippi 
in May, 1859, ^ ^"ota in favour of the reopening of 
the trade was passed by a large majority ; and this 
was followed up by the formation of an " African 
Labour Supply Association," of which Mr. De Bow, 
the editor of the leading Southern review, was the 
president. In Alabama, a " League of L^nited South- 
erners " issued a manifesto in which the Federal 
prohibition of the foreign slave trade is denounced 
as an unworthy concession to the demands of North- 
ern fanaticism, and which insists on " the necessity 
of sustaining slavery, not only where its existence is 
put directly in issue, but where it is remotely con- 
cerned." Li Arkansas and Louisiana the subject 

brethren of the Xorth in the colonization of the Territories . . . 
slave states cannot be made withont Africans. I am not telling 
you to do it, but it is a serious question concerning our political and 
domestic policy ; and it is useless to wage war about abstract rights, 
or to quarrel and accuse each other of imsoundness, unless we get 

more Africans Negro slavery is but in its infancy." 

And Mr. Jefferson Davis, while declaring his disapprobation of 
opening the trade in Mississippi, earnestly disclaimed " any coinci- 
dence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sin- 
fulness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi, not of the African" 
he said, " dictates my conclusion. Her arm is, no doubt, strength- 
ened by the presence of a due proportion of the servile caste, but it 
might be paralyzed by such an influx as would probably follow if 
the gates of the African slave-market were thrown open." . . . 
" This conclusion, in relation to Mississippi, is based upon my view 
of her pjirsent condition, not upon any genercd theory. It is not 
supposed to be applicable to Texas, to Neiv Mexico, or to any fxdnre 
acquisitions to be made south of the Rio Grande." 



2 10 IMrOUTATlUN OF yLAVKS 

was broiiglit before the state legislatures. A mo- 
tion brought forward in the Senate of the former 
state, eondeiunatory of the agitation for the revival 
of the African slave trade, was defeated by a 
majority of twenty-two. In the latter a bill em- 
bodying the views of the advocates of the trade 
wa>^ passed suceessfully through the Lower House, 
and only l>y a narrow majority lost in the Senate. 
In Georgia the executive committee of an agricul- 
tural society offered " a premium of twenty-five dol- 
lars for the best specimen of a live African imported 
within the last twelve months, to be exhibited at the 
next meeting of the society." Xor was the principle 
of competition confined to the show yard. Southern 
notions would have been shocked if so solemn a 
work had missed the benediction of tlie church. 
Accordingly, it was proposed in the T'rue Southern, 
a Mississippi paper, to stimulate the zeal of the 
pulpit by founding a prize for the best sermon in 
favour of free trade in human flesh. 

Meanwhile those who were immediately interested 
ill tlie question liad taken the law into their own 
hands, and the trade in slaves with Africa was 
actually commenced on a large scale. Throughout 
the years 1859 ^"^^ ^^^o fleets of slavers arrived at 
Southern ports, and, with little interference from 
the Federal riovcrnmont,* succeeded in landing 

• Not, liowpvfT, it would soeni, without Lnterruption from tlie 



ACTUALLY COMMENCED. 2 I I 

their cargoes. The traJfftc was carried on with 
scarcely an attempt at concealment. Announce- 
ments of the arrival of cargoes of Africans, and 
advertisements of their sale, appeared openly in the 
Southern papers ; and depots of newly imported 
" savages " were established in the principal toAvns 
of the South. " I have had ample evidences of the 
fact," said Mr. Underwood, a gentleman of known 
respectability, in a letter to the New York Tribune., 
" that the reopening of the African slave trade is 
already a thing commenced, and the traffic is brisk 
and rapidly increasing. In fact., the most vital 
question of the day is not the opening of the trade., 
but its suppression. The arrival of cargoes of 
negroes, fresh from Africa, in our Southern ports 
is an event of frequent occurrence."* 

One-half of the policy of "Thorough" was thus 
fairly inaugurated. But the process of augmenting 
a population is slow ; and, even on the supposition 
that the Federal prohibition of the external slave 
trade were removed, some years would elapse before 
the South could hope to renew, with any prospect of 

English cruisers. A correspondent of tlie Xew York Journal of 
Cominerce, writing from the coast of Africa, mentions the cajiture of 
no less than twenty-two vessels as having been effected by English 
cruisers in the summer and autumn of 1857. "All but one were 
American, and the larger number belonged to New York." 

* Annual Eeports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1857-8, 
1S58-9, 1859-60. 



2 I 1 TERVEKSION OF 1 HE CONSTITrTION. 

success, the colonization strug^de -with tlu- freesoilers. 
During the interval the movements ol" the North 
must hv some means l)e liekl in cheek ; the Territories 
must ))e ki'})t open. It Avas necessary, tlierefore, to 
devise a [>rin(ii)le of policy on which the party could 
act together with a view to tliis end : and lor this 
purpose the South, according to its custom in similar 
emerjrencies, hatl recourse to tlie Constitution of the 
United States. True, tlie whole tenour of the Con- 
stitution ran in an opposite direction. But the lead- 
ers of the ])nrty did not despair. Though they 
might nut lind tlieir favourite principle, totidem 
verbis, in the Constitution, nor yet, perhaps, toti- 
dem syllahis, " they dared engage," like the book- 
learned brother in a like ditficulty, " they should 
make it out tevt'io modo, or totideni Uteris.''* 

It was beyond question that the Constitution had 
recognized the right of property in human beings. 
This could not be denied, and this was a sufficient 
basis for the policy of the South. The recognition. 
it is true, was partial and local, so admittedly so, 
that, even under the rule of the Slave party, the 
whole course of law and government had proceeded 
upon this assmnptioii. Tlie latest enactment, for 
example, bearing upon the (juestion Avas the Kansas 
and Nebraska bill. This measure had been brought 
forward l»v a 1 )einocratic member actin;jf in concert 

• TaU of a Tub. 



EQUAL RECOGNITION OF SLAVERY CLAIMED. 213 

with the whole South, and had been carried against 
a vehement Northern opposition. Yet even this 
measure did not assume an equality between slavery 
and freedom under the Constitution ; for, while it 
left it open to the inhabitants of a Territory to pro- 
hibit slave labour therein, it permitted no corre- 
sponding prohibition to be directed against free 
labour ; while it refused to recognize property in 
slaves under certain circumstances, and left such 
property unprotected by law, it contemplated no 
occasion on which other kinds of property should 
not receive recognition and protection. The very 
expression, " peculiar institution," showed the light 
in which slavery was popularly regarded. But the 
Slave party had now resolved neither to see nor to 
admit any of these qualifying considerations. It 
took its stand on the principle that the Constitution 
recognized the right of property in man ; and, 
refusing to acknowledge anything which did not 
harmonize with this, it reasoned with ruthless con- 
sistency to the conclusion that Congress, which was 
the organ of the Constitution, was bound to protect 
this property in whatever part of the Union it might 
be found. The doctrine of " squatter sovereignty," 
which left it open to the inhabitants of a district 
to decide for or against slavery — albeit a doctrine 
fabricated to order, with a view to meet the special 
exigencies of the Slave Power — was therefore de- 



2 14 I'UEUEyUISITES Ul' THE NEW DuCTRINE. 

nounoed as no less unconstitutional than the Missouri 
Compromise, as no less dangerous than the AVilmot 
Proviso. It was not tor the people of a territory to 
sa\' what propert}- was to lie protected, and what to 
be left witliout protection ; but it was for Congress, 
to whi( h it belonged to give eftect to the Constitu- 
tion over the whole I'liion, to protect all property 
without distinction, whatever might be its nature, 
niid in whatever part of the Union it might be 
placed — wliether consisting of human or of other 
chattels, whether existing in the States or in the 
Territories, in the Slave States or in the Free. 

Such was the daring doctrine advanced by the 
leaders of the South in the critical position of their 
affairs at which they had now arrived. To make 
good their ground, they had need of two things; 
first, a judicial decision by the highest Federal au- 
thority in their favour ; and secondly, a government 
at Washington prepared to supply the necessary ad- 
ministrative machinery for giving full effect to this 
decision. The Supreme Court of the United States 
is the tribunal of ultimate a})peal in constitutional 
questions. This court had for a long series of years 
been composed of the most eminent lawyers of the 
Republic, and had maintained a high character for 
learning and wisdom, as well as for the spirit of 
enlightened impartiality with Avhich it discharged 
\t^ ]\\\sh functions. I'ut this court \\;is n<»\v destined 



RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUPREME COURT. 21$ 

to suffer from the same causes which had affected 
injuriously so many other institutions of the Union. 
The judges of the Federal courts were appointed by 
the President and approved by the Senate. In the 
Senate the Slave party was predominant, and it had 
hitherto been able to nominate the President. It 
had, therefore, the appointments to the national 
judicatory in its own hands ; and for some years 
—foreseeing that in the controversies which were 
pending it would be of importance to have the 
judicial bench on its side— it had been silently shap- 
ing to its purposes this great organ of the nation's 
power. With such success had the process been 
carried on, that in 1855, although the North had 
always furnished by far the greatest share of legal 
talent and learning to the bar of the Union, out 
of the nine judges who constituted the Supreme 
Court of the United States, five were Southern men 
and slaveholders, and the rest, though not natives of 
the South, were known to be in their sympathies 
strongly Southern. The tribunal of ultimate appeal 
in the Union was thus brought to a condition which 
commended it to the confidence of the "thorough" 
poUticians,* and before the court so constituted a 

* The foUowing, which occurs in the judgment of Chief Justice 
Taney in the Drecl Scott case, will give the reader an idea of the 
.invit witli which the court was animated. The question before 
the court was whether coloured persons are legally citizens of tlie 



2l6 



DKLl) bCOTT CASE. 



case was subinittcd fur judgment, involving the prin- 
ciple which it was desired to establish. This was 
the celebrated Dred Scott case. Tlie facts of it are 
sufficiently simple. A slave of the name of Dred 
Scott liad been carried by liis nuister from Missouri, 
his native state, Hrst to Illinois, a free state, and 
subsequently to the I'liited States territory north of 
Missouri, which, under the ^lis.-^ouri Compromise, 
was free territory. On bcinir br.moht back to Mis- 
souri, the slave ehunied Jiis freedom on the ground 
that his removal by his master to a free state and 
territory had emancipated him ; and that, once free, 
he could not be enslaved by being brought again 
into a slave state. Tliis demand was strictly in 
accordance with the i)revailing course of decisions 
over the whole South up to that time ; and was 

United States. ChanceUor Kent had laid it down in liis Comnion- 
taries, that " it is certain that the Constitution and statute law of 
New York speak of men of colour as being citizens ;" and that " if 
a slave be born in the United States, and lawfully discharged from 
bondage, or if a black man be born free in the United States, he 
becomes thenceforth a citizen." But Chief Justice Taney contended 
that coloured persons were incapable of enjoying this privih-ge. 
" Such persons," he said, " had been regarded as unfit to associrte 
with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far 
inferior that they had no rights whi,h the white man was bound 
to respect, and that the negro might jmtly and ImiituUi/ be reduced to 
tlavtvi/for hU ben./if ; (hat this opinion was, at that time, fjc^d ami 
mw^'Tsal in the civili:,d portion of th,' white race, and was regarded 
as an axiom in morals as well as politics, which no one thought of 
disputing, or supposed to be ojnn to dispute." 



EFFECT OF THE DECISION. 21 7 

thus, in conformity with precedent, conceded by the 
state court of Missouri, before which it was in the 
first instance brought. But the defendant appealed 
against this decision, and the case came on under a 
wi'it of error first before the Supreme Court of the 
State, and ultimately, having in the interval passed 
through one of the circuit Federal courts, before 
the Supreme Court of the Union. The result was 
the reversal by a majority of the Supreme Court of 
the judgment of the court below. In announcing 
the decision. Chief Justice Taney, who delivered 
judgment, laid down two principles which went the 
full length of the views of the Slave party. He 
declared, first, that in contemplation of law there 
was no difference between a slave and any other kind 
of property ; and secondly, that all American citizens 
might settle with their property in any part of tlie 
Union in which they pleased. 

Such was the momentous decision in the Dred 
Scott case. Its effect was to reverse the fundamen- 
tal assumption upon wdiich up to that time society 
in the Union had been based ; and, whereas for- 
merly freedom liad been regarded as the rule and 
slavery the exception, to make slavery in future the 
rule of the Constitution. According to the law, as 
expounded by the Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, it w^as now competent to a slaveholder to 
carry his slaves not merely into any portion of the 



2l8 SECOND KEgUlUEMENT OF THE SLAVE POWER 

Tt'iTiturics, but, it" it jilcascci him, into any of the 
Free States, to establish himself with his slave reti- 
nue in ( )hiu or -Massachusetts, in IVnnsylvania or 
New York, and to hold his slaves in bondage there, 
the regulations of Congress or the laws of the parti- 
eular state to the contrary notwithstanding. The 
L nion, if this doctrine were to be accepted, was 
henceforth a single slaveholding domain, in every 
part of which property in human beings was equally 
sacred. So sweeping were the consequences in- 
volved in the Drcd Scott decision. Reading that 
decision in the light of subsequent events, we can- 
not but admire the sagacious foresight of De Tocque- 
ville : — '' The President who exercises a limited 
power may err without causing great mischief in 
the state. Congress may decide amiss without de- 
stroying the Union, because the electoral body in 
which Congress originates may cause it to retract 
its decision by changing its members. But if the 
Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men 
or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into 
anarch)* or ci\il war." 

The Slave Power had thus accomplished its first 
object. The Constitution had been turned against 
itself, and, by an ingenious ai)plication of the " toti- 
dein Uteris " principle of interpretation, the right to 
extend slavery over the whole area of the Union 
was declared by the highest tribunal in the republic 



A RELIABLE GOVERNMENT. 219 

to be good in constitutional law. But it was fur- 
ther necessary to give practical eitect to this deci- 
sion ; and tliis could only be accomplished through 
a government at Washington favourable to the 
principle it embodied. It was therefore resolved 
that, in the approaching Presidential election, the 
party of the South should be reconstructed on the 
basis of this principle in its application to the Terri- 
tories ; (for it was thought prudent for the present 
to abstain from extending the new doctrine to tlie 
Free States). This policy was, however, in the last 
degree hazardous. The South had hitherto carried 
its measures through an alliance Avith the Demo- 
cratic party of the North ; but this party was now 
led by Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Douglas was the author 
of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the repeal of which 
was for the moment the main object of the South. 
Mr. Douglas was, therefore, plainly told that he 
must recant his former principles — principles which, 
at the cost of much loss of credit among his North- 
ern friends, he had devised expressly for the benefit 
of the Slave Power — and that he must make up his 
mind to uphold slavery in the Territories in spite of 
anti-slavery decisions by the squatter sovereignty, 
or forfeit the support of the South. Now this was 
a length to wdiich ^Ir. Douglas and the section 
Avhich he led — highly as they prized the Southern 
alliance, and indulgently and perhaps approvingly 



no BKicArii wnii iiii-; demucuats — secession. 

as they rc'«^arclL'd tin- institution ul" slavery — were 
not prepared to ;Li<).* Mr. Dou^rlas was, therefore, 
cast aside. 'I'lic eonihined phahmx whieli liad so 
long ruled the I'nion was broken in two, and the 
Slave Power stood alone. This position of affairs 
could ()id\- Icatl to one result — that which actually 
occurred — the triumph by a large majority of the 
Republican party. The South having thus failed to 
make good the one alternative of its ' thorough ' 
policy, at once accepted the other ; and the dissolu- 
tion of the I'nion was ])i'oclaimed. 

* Yet every point was strained to meet the views of the South. 
The distinction between the programmes of the two sections as they 
were ultimately amended, is so fine that it may easily escape the 
inattentive reader. The essence of the demand of the extreme 
(Breckenridge) section was contained in the second of the amend- 
ments made in the Cincinnati platform ; which was to tlie efi'ect 
" That it is the duty of the Federal govornment, in all its depart- 
ments, to protect when necessary the riglit of persons and property 
in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority ex- 
tends" ; while the Douglas party embodied in its amendments the 
prmciple of the I)red Scott decision. Theoretically, the positions 
were identical, but practically they involved an important difference. 
The Douglas programme, although acknowledging the right of slave 
property to protection in the Territories, gave to the slaveholders 
no other guarantee than a resort to the ordinary tribunixls ; where- 
as the assertion in the Breckenridge pnjgramme of the duty of the 
Federal government, "in all its dejiartments, to protect" slavery, 
was understood to imply the necessity of drawing up a black code 
for use in the Territories. " There must," says the liichmond En- 
quirer, " bo positive legislation. A civil and criminal code for the 
protection of slave property in the Territories ought to be provided." 



APOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AGGRESSION. 22 1 

Such has been the career of aggression pursued 
l)y the Slave Power in North America for the last 
fifty years. It forms, as it seems to me, one of the 
most striking and alarming episodes in modern his- 
tory, and furnishes a remarkable example of what a 
small body of men may effect against the most vital 
interests of human society, when, thoroughly under- 
standing their position and its requirements, they 
devote themselves deliberately, resolutely, and un- 
scrupulously to the accomplishment of their ends. 
It has indeed been contended that "the action of 
the South on this subject [the extension of slavery], 
though in appearance aggressive, has in reality been 
in self-defence, as a means of maintaining its politi- 
cal status against the growth of the North."* And 
in one sense this is true, though by no means in the 
sense in which the author of this argument would 
have us believe it. What is suggested is, that the 
political ascendancy of the South has been necessary 
to prevent its being sacrificed to the selfish ends 
of the Northern majority ; and that it has been with 
a view to this object — security against Northern 
rapacity — and not at all on its own account, that 
the extension of slavery has been sought. The 
policy of slavery extension by the South is thus 
represented as but a means to an end — that end 
being the legitimate development of its own resour- 

* Spence's Anierican Union, p. 107. 



2 22 AGGRESSION OF THE SLAVE POWEU 

res. Such is the theory. Uiie more strikingl}' at 
variance with the most conspicuous facts of the case it 
wouhl perhaps be diliicult to imagine. Tlie extension 
of shivery souglit as a means to an end ! and tliat end 
free trade, fiscal equality, and the internal develop- 
ment of the Southern States ! AVhy, if these were 
the real objects of the South, where was the need, 
and what was the meaning, of secession ? They 
were all secured to it by the Cincinnati platform ; 
they had all been advocated by Mr. Douglas. Why 
then reject the Democratic manifesto and the Demo- 
cratic candidate, and l)reak with the Democratic 
part\- — if this Avas all that was sought ? AVere 
state rights threatened by the C^ncuimitl^ platform 
Was Mr. Douglas a protectionist ? Yet if the South 
had not broken w4th this party — a party whose 
motto was state rights and free trade, a party which 
regarded slavery with something more than indul- 
gence — the Democratic organization might never 
have been shaken, and the South might still have 
been in possession of the Federal Government. 
" But why discuss on probable evidence notorious 
facts ? The Avorld knows what the question between 
the North and South has been for many years, and 
still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked 
of Slavery was battled for and against, on the 
floor of Congress and in the plains of Kansas ; on 
the slavery question exclusively was the party con- 



m WHAT SENSE DEFENSIVE. 223 

stituted which now rules tlie United States ; on 
slavery Fremont was rejected, on slavery Lincoln 
w^as elected ; the South separated on slavery, and 
proclaimed slavery as the one cause of separation."* 
But, though not true in the sense suggested by 
the English champions of the Southern cause, there 
is a sense in which it is strictly true that the aggres- 
sions of the Slave Power have been defensive move- 
ments. This is indeed the essence of the case which 
I have endeavoured to establish. For I have en- 
deavoured to show that, while the economic necessi- 
ties of the South require a constant extension of the 
area of its dominion, and while its moral necessities 
require no less urgently a field for its political 
ambition, it is yet, from the peculiarity of its social 
structure, incapable of amalgamating with societies 
of a different type, and has no objects which it can 
pursue with them in common ; and that, conse- 
quently, it can only attain its ends at their expense. 
It must advance ; it cannot mix with free societies ; 
and, wdiere these meet it in the same field, it must 
push them from its path. In this sense it must be 
allowed that the aggressive movements of the South 
have been but efforts prompted by the instincts of 
self-defence ; but whether the fact, when thus under- 
stood, is likely to help the argument of those w^ho 
employ it, it is for them to consider. It is sug- 

* Mr. Mill in Frasers Magazine for February, 1862. 



22.^ THE APOLOGY ADMITS THE CHARGE. 

gested, indeed, that this necessity of a<rgTcssion 
arises from tlie re lative inferiority of tlie South in 
wealtli and nuiiihfis — tliat its encroachments are but 
"means of maintaining!: its political status against 
the growth of the North." 15ut In all political 
confederacies particular members or groups of 
members must be inferior to other members or 
groui)S, or to the rest combined, and if this were 
a reason for ])olitical separation, there could be 
no such thing as political union. The Southern 
States are not more inferior in wealth and numbers 
to the Northern than is Ireland to Great Britain, 
or Scotland to England and Ireland ; yet neither 
Ireland nor Scotland is compelled in self-defence 
to pursue towards the more powerful confederation 
of which they severally form a part a policy of 
aggression. AVhy should it be different with the 
Southern States of the Union ? Let the champions 
of the South address themselves to this prol)lem, 
and if they can solve it without bein<T broujrht at 
last to slavery as the ultimate cause of all other dis. 
sensions — the one incompatibility in the case— they 
will show more ingenuity than they have even yet 
displayed. I venture to suggest that solution 
which has been foreshadowed by De Tocqueville, 
and which is at once the most obvious and the most 
profound. The South has been compelled to pursue 
a policy of aggression towards the North, not be- 



ATTEMPT OF JOHN BROWX. 225 

cause it is less rich or less populous, but l)ec;nise it 
is different, and ull the differences whicli divide 
North and South have originated in slavery — in an 
institution which prevents the growth of interests, 
ideas, and aims in Avhich free societies can share, 
and which can prosper only by perpetually en- 
croaching on their sphere.* 

* Some exjilanation, perhaps, is needed why in the foregoing 
sketch no nieution has been made of one of the most signal and 
devoted acts of heroism in modern times — the attempt of John 
Brown to open a gnerilla warfare against slavery in Virginia. The 
omission has been made designedly. The enter])rise, however 
worthy of being recorded, ha\dng yet originated exclnsively in the 
noble heart of the man who conducted it, and having been carried 
into operation "wdthout the connivance of any considerable party in 
the United States, could not properly be inchided in a sketch of 
wliich the object was to trace the working of those parties. The 
effort stood apart from the combination of agencies Avhich were 
working towards the same end ; yet it would not be correct to 
say that it was without mfluence on the cause which it was 
designed to serve. Its connexion with the history of the moA^ement 
appears to have been tliis. The alarm wliich the attempt created 
in the South had the eifect of strengthening the influence of the 
extreme party there, and of transferring the conduct of affairs in 
the Slave States from such men as Hammond and Hunter, Wise 
and Clingham, to such men as Jefferson Davis, Stephens, and Yan- 
cey — from the representatives of the Border to those of the Cotton 
States. (See Amiuaire des Deux Mondes, i860, pp. SS^-S^S-) ^* 
can scarcely be doubted that this hastened the split in the Demo- 
cratic party, and thereby the triumph of the Republicans. In this 
manner the enterprise of John Brown conduced directly to the 
present crisis, and, through this, we may now with some confidence 
assert, to the downfall of the great crime against whicli he had 



2 26 ITS PLACE IN CURRENT HISTORY. 

sworn undyinpf enmity. Tlie reflection will be welcome to those 
who wouKl ilt'ploi-e that an act of such serene self-devotion should 
be performed iu vain. 

" Actions of the juBt 
Smell sweet in death, and hlussum in the du8t." 

The reader who desires to see a faithful and spirited sketch of this 
worthy representative of the sturdy virtue of the Pilgrim Fathers 
is referred to the Life and Letters of Captain John Broivn, edited 
by Riihard D. Webb. London : Smith, Elder and Co. 1861. 



22' 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DESIGNS OF THE SLAVE POWER. 

"We have traced in the foregoing chapter the career 
of the Slave Power. In the present it is proposed to 
consider its probable designs. This, indeed, might 
well seem to be a superfluous inquiry ; since, if we 
have correctly appreciated the past history of that 
Power, and the motives which have carried it to its 
present perilous attempt, we shall not easily err as to 
the objects which it would pursue in the event 
of that attempt being successful. Combinations of 
men do not in a moment change their character and 
aims ; of all combinations aristocracies are the most 
persistent in their plans ; and of all aristocracies 
an aristocracy of slaveholders is that the range 
of whose ideas is most limited, and whose career, 
therefore, is least susceptible of sudden deviation 
from the path which it has long followed. 

Nevertheless, it will not be expedient to take for 
granted what would seem to be in such little need 
of proof ; for there are those who tell us that this 
party, whose whole history has been a record of 
successful aggression and of pretensions rising vnth 
each success, has engaged in this last grand effort 



228 ESSENllAl. (UAH AT TEH OF SLAVE SOCIETY 

iVoia iiiotivt'S tlio reverse of tliose -wliicli Imvr hither- 
to notoriously inspired it ; and who wouhl liave us 
hi'licvc tliat tlu- Slave Power, which in tlie space of 
halt" a eciitury lias pusju'd its houiidai'\- iVoni the 
foot of the Alle^jhauies to the hoi'do-s of \cw 
Mexico, and which. IVinii the position of an ex- 
ceptional principle clainiinu' a local toleration, has 
reached the audacity of aspiring to embrace the 
whole coninionwealth in its domain — that this 
Power has suddenly ehan<,a.'d its uature, and, in 
now seeking to secede from the Union, aims at 
nothing more than sim})le independence — the privi- 
lege of being allowed to work out its own destiny 
in its own way. 

This assumption, indeed, however paradoxical to 
tliose who are familiar with the exploits of the 
Southern party, underlies most of the speculation 
which has been current in this country upon the 
probable consequences of a severance of the Union, 
and is that which has procured for the cause of 
secession the degi-ee of countenance which it has 
enjoyed. It will therefore be desirable to consider 
how far the basis of the assumption is warranted — 
how far the altered position of the South — suppos- 
ing it to make its ground good in the present 
struggle— is calculated to aifect the character which 
it has hitherto sustained, and to convert an un- 



UNCHANGED BY INDErENDENCE. 229 

scrupulous and ambitious faction into the moderate 
rulers of an inoffensive state. 

And here we must advert to principles already 
established. A\'e have seen the causes which luue 
made the Slave Power what it is : — in its new posi- 
tion which of these causes will cease to operate ? 
Slavery is to remain the " corner stone " of the re- 
public more firmly set than ever. The economic 
and moral attributes of the South will therefore 
continue to be such as slavery must make them. 
Cultivation will be carried on according to the old 
methods : the old process of exhaustion must, there- 
fore, go on ; and thus the necessity for fresh soils Avill 
be not less urgent under the new regime than under 
the old. The stigma which slavery casts on indus- 
try will still remain : there Avill, therefore, still be an 
idle and vagabond class of mean whites ; and, since 
cultivation must still be contracted to the narrow 
area which is rich enough to support slave labour, 
there will, as now, be the wilderness to shelter them. 
There they must continue to drag out existence, 
lawless, restless, incapable of improvement, eager as 
ever for filibustering raids on peaceful neighbours. 
Lastly, the moral incidents of slavery must remain 
such as we have traced them. The lust of power 
will still be generated by the associations and habits 
of domestic tyranny, and the ambition of slave- 



230 INHERENT VICES UF THE SLAVE POWER 

holders will still connect itself with that Avhicli is 
the foundation of their social life, and otters to them 
tlieir only means of emerging from obscurity. In a 
word, all those luiidamental influences springing 
from the deepest roots of slave society, which have 
concurred to mould the eharactei- and determine 
the career of the Slave Power while in connexion 
with the Union, will, after that connexion has been 
dissolved, continue to operate with unabated energy. 
Nor does this adequately represent the case. While 
the same motives to ambition will remain, the ap- 
petite for power will be still further stimulated by 
the exigencies of its new position. Connected with 
the North, the Slave Tower was sustained by tlie 
prestige of a great confederation. Through the 
medium of its government it was l)rought into 
harmonious relations wuth free countries ; under the 
aegis of its protection it enjoyed almost complete 
immunity from foreign criticism. It so happened, 
too, that, during the chief period of its connexion 
with the Union, the South contrived to hold the 
reins of government in its own liands, and was thus 
enabled in the i)rosecution of its designs to wield a 
power far gi-eater than its own, and to compass 
ends which, in the absence of such support, could 
not have failed to call up in other countries 
pffootual opjyosition. Rut, .^cjKirntcd from the North, 
it will n.'ithcv coimnand the same resources nor 



INTENSIFIED BY ITS NEW POSITION. 23 I 

enjoy among foreign powers tlie same consideration. 
Its position will be one of absolute isolation from 
the whole civilized world : it will be compelled to 
encounter without mitigation the concentrated re- 
probation of all free society. Such a position will 
only be permanently tenable on one condition — 
that of vastly augmenting its power. The South 
will not be slow to discover this ; and thus, by more 
powerful inducements than it has yet experienced, 
the Slave Power will be precipitated upon a new 
career of aggression. 

These considerations apply to every conceivable 
hypothesis as to the terms on which the independ- 
ence of the Southern Confederacy may be accom- 
plished. But, in order to bring out more distinctly 
the views which are likely to govern this body as an 
independent power, it will be convenient to consider 
the case on three distinct suppositions. 

AVe may suppose, first, that the independence 
of the Slave Republic is recognized on the terms of 
permanently limiting its area to those portions of 
the South which are already definitely settled under 

slavery. 

Or, secondly, we may suppose its independence to 
be recognized on the condition of its being restricted 
for the present to the above limits, but with liberty 
of colonizing, and, after colonization, of annexing 
the unsettled districts on equal terms with the North 



L^ 



^3^ i'nSSlliij: CONDJliuXs OF IXDEPENDtNCE. 

-the- (juestion of free or slave institution, beinu left 
to l.e .l.tcrniined 1,3- .onie principle analogous to 
squatter suvcivifjiity. 

■I'l'iiaiy, wu may suppose an e.|ual .li,isi„„ of d.e 
'.M,et(le.l portions of the p„Mi,- donmi,, between ti.e 
cotitendtng parties, the .Soutl, taking that portion 
"•hK-h lies westward of its ovn. boundary, ineludin.^ 
tlie Inchan Territory and Xew Jlexieo. 

Takin- the first of these Suppositions-tlie reco-. 
'""on of ,l,e independence of the South on the tenrs 
ot bemg pen„anen,Iy eonlined wiihin the limits of 
country aK-ady settled under sh.very-this would 
invohe a considerable curtailment of the present 
area of the Slave States. Extensive districts included 
■"this area ea.n.ot in any correct sense be said to be 
fettled at all ; and others are settled under freedon, 
1 l.e latter observation applies to large portions of 

I'^'^T' "'"'"''^"' """ •'"^^«""' "'"^1' would 
therefore, on the hypothesis we are at present eo.,.' 
sHlenng, pass to the .ide of the Xorth ; the fortner 
api-ltes to Texas, and, in a considerable degree, to Ar- 
kansas. Thus, Texas, comprising an area of .74 „6 
«,uare .niles_a„ area greatly larger than that of 
"•""c-e-eontained in .850 but 58,,6, slaves ; and 
''~' ^^*«Hling over 5.,,98 scpu.re miles_an 
a.-ca larger than that of Kngland-eontaine.l b,„ 
47..00 slaves. I 'istrics in which the slaves arc n,„ 
"""■>• '""-■ous than this-.lbei, thcv n,av have 



LIMITATION OF SLAVERY TO ITS PRESENT AREA. 233 

been enrolled as slave states to meet the politieal 
exio-encies of the Slave Power — cannot be said to 

a 

have been yet appropriated to slavery. The task of 
their colonization is yet to be performed ; and on the 
supposition, therefore, that the Slave Power were re- 
stricted within the country which it has really set- 
tled, these districts with the others would pass from 
its grasp. Now, what future would lie before the 
Slave Power in the event of its being shut up within 
these limits ? It seems to me w^e can have little 
difficulty in forecasting its destiny. If there be any 
truth in the best established conclusions, independ- 
ence upon such terms could only be the prelude to 
an early overthrow of the present social and political 
fabric of the South. Once confine the operations of 
slavery to the tracts which it already occupies, and 
the ultimate extinction of the system becomes as cer- 
tain as the ultimate surrender of the garrison of a 
beleaguered town which is absolutely cut oif from 
relief. Emancipation w^ould be gradually but surely 
forced upon slaveholders by irresistible causes ; and 
scope w^ould at length be given for the resuscitation 
of society upon wholesome principles. Each year 
would bring, on the one hand, an increase of the 
slave population, and on the other — as the soil de- 
teriorated under the thriftless methods of slave 
culture — a diminished area of land suitable for its 
employment ; and the process would continue till, 



^34 KESULTS (JF THIS PLAN. 

ill tlic words of J ud Lie Warner, ''both master and 
slave would be starved out." The prueess of decay 
would eouiniencc in the older states. There Avould 
be a la 11 in the price of slaves : breeding would no 
longer be prohtable ; and thus the single prop which 
has for fifty years su])ported sla\er}- in tjiose states 
would be at once withdrawn. Tor a time the work- 
ing states might not be losers, and might even be 
gainers by the change. The price of labour might 
fall more rapidly than their lands would deteriorate. 
But it would be for a time only. The decreasing pro- 
ductiveness of the slave's exertions would at leno-th 
reach the point at which the returns from them 
would not equal the cost of his support, and then 
the progress towards the catastrophe would be rapid. 
The fate of the older states would overtake every 
portion of the slave domain ; and tlie whole bodv of 
slaveholders would be compelled to face the fearful 
problem of doing justice to four million victims of 
their own and their ancestors' wrong. It is not to 
l)e supposed, however, that the solution Avould be 
postponed to the last moment. So soon as the end 
came distinctly into view, i)rovision would doubtless 
be made to meet the inevitable change ; and the 
gradualness of tlic pi'oeess would allow time ior the 
action of palliative influences. Such, it seems to 
me, woiiM be the result of indepemK;nce on the terms 
involved in ihe first liyj)otliesis. In such tei-ms, 



SECOND CONDITION OF INDEPENDENCE. 235 

however, Ave may be well assured, the Southern 
leaders, fully understanding as they do their own 
case, would only acquiesce after complete subju- 
gation. 

But, secondly, we may assume, as the condition of 
Southern independence, that the unsettled portions 
of the public domain (including under this expres- 
sion, besides the Territories technically so called, 
the greater part of Arkansas and nearly the whole 
of Texas) should be open for slave colonization, 
while a like liberty should be accorded for free 
settlement ; and we have now to consider what 
would be the effect of its position, as thus determined, 
on the fortunes of the Slave Power. Now I think it 
is plain that, in view of the competition which such 
a determination of the question would inevitably 
engender, the necessity would at once be forced 
upon the South of maintaining a footing in the 
unsettled districts at whatever cost. The attractions 
offered by the fertile soils and fine river systems of 
Texas and Arkansas could not fail to draw from the 
North, on the one hand, and from California, on the 
other, crowds of free settlers, who would quickly 
establish themselves upon the most eligible sites. If 
the South did not proceed with equal energy, it 
would find itself forestalled at every point. A cor- 
don of free states would in no long time be drawn 
around its border, barring its advance towards the 



-3^ ti:ki:iturii:s urKxi.D aliki: to 

rich laiuls (. I" Mexico, and throwing it back upon its 
cxliaiistcd iichls. Is it likely that the Slave Power 
would quietl}' contemplate this consummation,— 
that it would look forward to wdiat .Air. Spence aptly 
calls " the painful process of strannrulation," without 
making an eftbrt to break the bauds which were 
graduidly but surely closing around it ? The suj.- 
position is incredible. Freedom and slavery would 
therefore once more renew their race in the colo- 
nization of the Territories. And on what grounds 
could the South hope for success in such a contest ? 
'J'he mortifying lesson taught in Kansas has not 
been forgotten. The South knoM-s well that a re- 
newal of the contest luider conditions which then 
brought signal defeat must iiu\itablv lead to a 
like result. But the- conditions of the new trial of 
strength would, in one respect at least, be far less 
favourable for the Soutliern cause than those which 
proved disastrous in K'ansas. The Slave Power 
would no longer hnd an accomplice enthroned at 
Washington. What happened in Kansas, therefore, 
would of necessity be repeated in Texas and New 
Mexico; the South would ])e out-colonized by its 
rival, and the goal would appear in no distant view. 
'Ihcre would Ix- j,ut one escape fi-om this fate— such 
a rai)id increase of its disposable slave population as 
would supply the drk'n fn.ni whirl, it suffered in its 
former atf. nil. f> : and rj.i. i,,,.,va.sc could oidv be 



FKEE AND SLAVE COLONIZATION. — RESULTS. 237 

accomplislicd in one way — a revival of tlie African 
slave trade. The revival of this trade would, ac- 
cordingly, in the event we are considering, become a 
vital question for the South. AVhether the measure 
would really prove effectual for the purpose designed 
is a question Avhich I do not think we have sufficient 
data to resolve ; but that such would be the case is 
undoubtedly the opinion of the Southern leaders. 
" We can divide Texas into five slave states," says the 
Vice-president of the Southern Confederation, " and 
get Chihuahua and Sonora, if we have the slave popu- 
lation ; but unless the number of the African stock 
be increased we have not the population, and might 
as w^ell abandon the race with our brethren of the 
North in the colonization of the Territories. Slave 
states cannot be made without Africans." " Take 
off," says Mr. Gaulden of Georgia, " the ruthless re- 
strictions wdiich cut off the supply of slaves from 
foreign lands . . . take off the restrictions against the 
African slave trade, and we should then want no 
protection, and I would be willing to let you have 
as much squatter sovereignty as you wish. Give us 
an equal chance, and I tell you the institution of 
slavery will take care of itself." From all this it 
seems to follow — assuming a separation on the terms 
of an open field for free and slave colonization over 
the still unsettled districts— that the only chance of 
permanently establishing the Southern Republic on 



238 THIRD CONDITION OF IXDEPENDENCE. 

that '' corner stone" wliich its builders have chosen, 
woiikl lie ill reopeniii*: the AlVicaii slave trade, and 
rapidly iiKreasin«r the supply of slaves ; and that 
the Southern leaders would in the contingency sup- 
posed, at oii((> adopt this expedient I cannot for a 
moment douht. As wc have seen in a iornier chap- 
ter, the trade had actually been connnenced on an 
extensive scale before the breaking: out of the civil 
war ; and, with vastly more urgent reasons for re- 
viving it, while there would be entire freedom from 
the restraints of Federal legislation, it is difficult to 
believe that there would be any hesitation about re- 
curring to the same course. 

But there is yet another condition under which 
the independence of the South may be regarded. 
We may suppose that the Union is dissolved on the 
terms of an equal division of the unsettled districts 
between the contending parties. This arrangement 
would probably satisfy the utmost aspirations of the 
Southern party. It would probably also — so far as 

any distinct ideas on the sidiject exist fall in with 

the conception of an independent South which for 
the most part rises before those who in this country 
take the Southern side, including, it mav be ob- 
served, some whose sincerity in disclaimino- all 
sympathy with slavery it is impossible to doubt. It 
becomes, therefore, of importance that the conse- 



EQUAL PARTITION OF THE TERRITORY. 



■^39 



quences involved in this mode of establishing South- 
ern independence be carefully examined. 

The argument by which the support of the South- 
ern cause, understood as I have just stated it, is 
reconciled with the avowal of anti-slavery opinions, 
is one with the basis of which the reader is now fami- 
liar. It is this, that under the proposed arrange- 
ment the limits of slavery Avould be fixed ; and that, 
this point being attained, the downfall of the system 
would in due time follow. " The Southern Con- 
federacy, hemmed in between two free and jealous 
neighbours [the Northern States and Mexico] will 
henceforth see its boundaries, and comprehend and 
accommodate itself to its future conditions of na- 
tional existence. The moment slavery is confined 
definitively with its present limits, according to the 
best opinions, its character becomes modified and its 
doom is sealed, though the execution of the sentence 
may seem to be relegated to a very distant day."* 

This theory, it will be remarked, involves a sus- 
picious paradox. It supposes that the most com- 
plete success which the South can hope for in the 
present war would eflxictually defeat the precise 
object for which the South has engaged in war. It 
supposes that Englishmen know more of the real 
necessities of slavery than the men whose lives have 

* North British Rem^w for February, 1862, p. 269. 



240 DEFENCE OF THIS SCHEME. 

been spent in working the system, and wlio Imve 
now staked tlit-ni on an attempt to establisli it upon 
lirni foundations. Ik'forc accepting so improbable a 
doctrine, it will be worth considering whether there 
may not l)e more to Ix- said ibr the wisdom of Mr. 
Jefferson Davis and his friends, than those would have 
us think wlio in this (■ounti-\- faNoui- tlicir cause. 

It seems diiHeult U) belie\e tliat tliose who specu- 
late on the prospects of slavery in tlie manner of 
the writer from whom T have quoted, have attended 
to the geographical conditions under which, in the 
case supposed, the institution would Ije i)laced. The 
South is described as " hemmed in " betw^een ^lexico 
and the X(jrth. The expression implies ideas of 
magnitude trul}' American ; for the Power thus 
" hemmed in " would be master of a space as large 
as all Europe west of the Vistula, and would have at 
its disposal a region, still unsettled and available for 
slave colonization, little less extensive than the 
whole area of the present Slave States.* Under an 
arrangement which professes to provide- for the ex- 
tinction of slavery a new field would be thus secured 
for its extension, equal to that which now employs 
4,000,000 slaves. 

* That is to say, the whole of tliosc of tliPin wliieli are actually 
settled under slavery — a description which would exclude nearly the 
whole of Texas, Florida, and Arkan;>as, of which three states the 
aggregate slavo population is less than 150,000. 



GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS IGNORED. 24 T 

But it will perhaps be said that, whatever might 
be the immediate effects of Southern independence 
established upon these terms, still, the bounds of 
slavery being absolutely fixed, jDrovision would be 
made for its ultimate extinction. Those opponents 
of slavery who find comfort in this view of the case 
must possess more far-reaching sympathies than I 
can pretend to. It may be worth their Avhile, how- 
ever, to consider whether even their longanimity 
may not in the end be balked of its reward. For, 
ere the time w^ould arrive when the Slave Power, 
having occupied the vast regions thus secured for it, 
would begin to feel the restraints of its spacious 
prison, at least a quarter of a century would have 
elapsed, and at least two million slaves Avould be 
added to the present number. With this increase 
in the area of its dominion and in the number of 
its slave population, and with the time thus allowed 
it for consolidating its strength and maturing its 
plans, it cannot be doubted that the power of the 
South would have become indefinitely more formi- 
dable than it has ever yet sho^vn itself And as 
little, I think, can it be doubted that its audacity 
would have grown with its strength ; for it w^ould 
now, by actual trial, have proved its prowess against 
the only antagonist whom it has really to dread, 
and it would enter on its career of independence 
amid all the ^clat of victory. In the mood of 



24- NORTIIEKN JEALOl'SV 

mind produced by tlie contemplation of its achieve- 
ments and the sense of its supremacy, is it likely that 
the South would be content to bridle its ambition, — 
much less to accept a lot, acquiescence in which 
would be taiitaniount to siiiiiing its own doom ? 

It will be said that the Slave Power, severed from 
the Union, would iiiid itself on all sides sui'i'mnided 
by watclii"id and jtalous neighbours, whose office it 
would be to counteract its intrigues and to hold its 
ninbition in check ; and that, in discharging this 
office, the free communities of America would be 
sustained by the moral, and, if need were, by the 
physical, support of the Great Powers of Europe. It 
cannot ])e denied that there is much weight in this 
consideration ; yet its importance may easily be 
over-rated. The Xorthern States, once shut out 
from Mexico and Central America by the vast range 
of territory which, under this determination of the 
cpiarrid, would be alienated from their confederacy, 
would have little object in staying the progress of 
the South in that direction. It is, moreover, im- 
portant to observe that one of the most popular 
projects among all sections of the Northern people, 
for some years past, has been the providing of rail- 
way communication between the Atlantic and the 
Pacific States*— a project which, so soon as the re- 

On this point at least tho Republican ami Democratic parties 
are at one. Sec their respective platforms. 



NOT A SUFFICIENT SAFEGUARD. 243 

establishment of pence shall allow time for the pro- 
secution of industrial schemes, will doubtless be 
resumed. Now, this idea once carried into effect, 
the chief reason with the Northern people for 
desiring influence in the Gulf of Mexico would be 
removed. Again, it is not impossible that, before 
the time should arrive when intervention might 
be required, the position of affairs among the North- 
ern States might be considerably altered. Although 
I am quite unable to see the ground for tlie appre- 
hension now so prevalent, and apparently so influ- 
ential, in the North, that, a severance of the Union 
once effected, the process of disintegration would go 
forward till society should be reduced to its primary 
elements ; still I think it cannot be doubted that 
the example would be contagious ; and thus it is 
no violent supposition, that, as in course of time a 
difference of external conditions among several 
groups of the Northern States resulted in the growth 
of different interests and different modes of regard- 
ing political c^uestions, the present would be fol- 
lowed by future secessions, until, in the end, several 
communities should take the place of the existing 
Confederation. Now it is obvious to reflect that, 
were such an order of political relations once 
established, the Northern States would find, in the 
clashing interests and mutual jealousies developed 
among themselves, more tempting- matter for diplo- 

i6* 



-44 EUROrEAN INTERVENTION 

matic activity than in counteractino: the desio-ns of 
Southern ambition in a ])art of the worhl from 
whicli tlieir ronneximi, alike commercial and poli- 
tical, had hccn ahiio.st wliolly cut ofl". 

And still less is luii-oiM-aii intervention to be 
relied upon. The I'owers of Europe have doubtless 
strong reasons that Central America sIk.uM be held 
by hands which they can trust ; and they would na- 
turally be disposed to offer obstacles to the progress 
of a Slave Power. But Europe is far removed from 
the scene of Mexican intrigue ; and a European 
war, or even a serious complication in European 
politics, might easily relax their vigilance. Taking 
into consideration all the circumstances of the case 
—the period wliich would elapse before the new 
lands could be occupied, a period during which the 
Slave Power would have time to organize its forces 
and to study the weakness of its opponents— the 
chances that in the interval disunion in the North, 
or complications of policy in Europe, would produce 
contingencies favourable to its designs— the persist- 
enc}' of aristocracies in pushing schemes on which 
they have once entered— the eminent examples of 
this qualit}' which the South has already furnished— 
the passion, amounting to fanaticism, with which it 
has long cherished this particular scheme— above all, 
the absolute necessity under which it would in the 
end find itsellOf extending its domain— who, I say, 



STILL LESS TO BE RELIED ON. 24.5 

with all these circumstances in view, can feel assured 
that, once established on the broad basis of an em- 
pire reaching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, 
the Slave Power would not hold out a serious 
menace of realizing the vast projects of its ambition ; 
and that the world might not one day be appalled 
by the spectacle of a great slaveholdiiig confederacy 
erecting itself in Central America, encircling the 
Gulf of Mexico, absorbing the West Indies, and 
finally including under its sway the whole tropical 
region of the New World ?* 

* "Vers le milieu de rannee 1859, il se forma dans les etats qui 
cultivent le coton, et spccialement dans la Louirfiane et le Mississipi, 
una association myst6rieuse, dont les statuts etaient convert d'un 
secret inviolable, et dont les membres s'intitulaient les chevaliers du 
cercle d'or. Ces chevaliers appartenaient exclusivement aux classes 
aisles ; ils avaient une organisation toute militaire et devaient etre 
pourvus d'armes. Les progres rapides de cette association atti- 
r^rent quelque attention ; mais comme Walker parcourait a ce mo- 
ment le sud et commen9ait les preparatifs de I'exp^dition dans 
laquelle il devait perdre la vie, on crut qu'il se niMitait un nouveau 
coup de main contre le Nicaragua ou contre quelqu'une des provinces 
du Mexique, que I'objet de I'association etait de recueillir de I'argent 
et de recruter des Ixommes pour le compte du celebre flibustier, 
D'autres penserent que le succes qui avait couronn*^ les tentatives 
faites pour introduire des negres d'Afrique par les bouclies du 
Mississipi avait donn6 naissance a de vastes operations de traite. 
Comme il s'agissait, dans les deux cas, de violer les lois et de 
dejouer la surveillance des autorites fcdi^i'ales, le mystcre dont 
s'eutourait Tassociation s'expliquait tout naturellement. Les pro- 
jets des chevaliers etaient beaucoup plus ambitieux cependant : ils 
tendaient a detacher de la confederation les etats qui cultivent lo 



^4^^ MODIFICATION OF SLAV^KV 

Iftlicre be any force in these speculations, it will 
be seen that Mr. Jettersoii Davis and his associates 
were not so widely mistaken in the selection of their 
means as has been commonly supposed, and tliat 
they may contemplate Avith considerable compla- 
cency the "euthanasia" wliich lias l)een predicted 
for their favourite institution.* That tlic establish- 
ment of Southern independence upon equal terms 
will "modify the character" of slavery, 1 am far 
from denyino-. But it is important to determine in 
what direction the modification will take place, and, 
in connexion with this subject, I shall revert to a 
topic to which I have already more than once re- 
ferred, l)ut the importance of whieli deserves a some- 
what fuller consideration than has yet been given to 

coton pour en former une ropublique nouvelle, dont I'esclavago 
eerait I'institution fondamentale, et qui puiserait dans le r^tabli&se- 
ment de la traite les Siemens d'une rapide pix)spt'rite. Dbs que sa 
force d'expansiou ne serait j.lus arrOtee par la clierte de la maiu- 
d'oeuvre, la nouvelle ropublique ne pouvait manquer d'absorber en 
quelquos annoes le ^lexique, le Nicaragua et la Eolivie ; elle ac- 
querrait de gi-e ou de force toutes les Antilles, et fonderait an centre 
du continent amdricain I'dtat le plus riche et le plus puissant du 
monde. Le cercle d'or, cY'taient done les pays et les lies qui forment 
autour du golfe du Mexique une ceinture d'une incomparable fecon- 
<lit^-" — Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1860, p. 602. 

* "This euthanasia of slavery [the consummation of Southern 
indepeiidencc, a.s (w^nceived by the writer] we admit to be slow and 
distant; but we solemnly believe it to be both safe an.l certain. 
And, at least, itwa euthanasia— a natural and not a violent death." 
--Noyfh Brit i fit Iferinr {nv F.-bniary. iS^'iz, p. 2-2. 



INVOLVED IN THE SUCCESS OF THE SOUTH. 247 

it I mean the possibility of a revival of the African 

slave trade. 

The audacity of this conception and its incon- 
gruity with the prevailing modes of thought in 
Europe, and especially in England, have on this side 
of the Atlantic caused general incredulity as to the 
fact that such a project has been really entertained. 
It seems almost too monstrous that a party, claiming 
admission as an equal member into the community 
of Christian nations, should deliberately conceive 
the plan of reviving in the full light of modern 
civilization a scandal which has long lain under its 
ban. It is not then strange that the disclaimers by 
Southern agents of any intention on the part of the 
South to revive the trade have, for the most part, ob- 
tained an easy acceptance in Europe. But those 
Avho are thus easily satisfied can scarcely have at- 
tended to the prevailing tendencies of Southern poll- 
tics, or be aware of the steps which, previous to the 
outbreak of the civil war, had been actually taken m 
this direction by the party now dominant in the 
South. Of the strong interest of the Slave Power m 
the revival of the trade, in the event of its independ- 
ence being established on any terms which give it a 
chance of maintaining itself in the Territories, there 
cannot I think be a doubt. It has been already 
shown that, on one supposition, the question would 
become al)solutely vital. It would l)e only a choice 



2-4^ Ki:\ IVAL UF THE AFKICAN SLAVE TRADE. 

between the reopoiiin*r of the trade and acquiescence 
in a condition of thin;j:s whidi \\(.iild be tantamount 
to early extinction. On the hypothesis last consi- 
dered, there Mould not, indeed, be the same vital 
necessity f.»r the measure ; nevertheless, the temp, 
tation to it w..uld be strong. The labour force 
of the South lias long been unecpial to the re- 
quirements of the i)lantcrs. Of this the steady 
rise in the price of slaves during half a century is 
a sufficient proof. But, with the whole Southern 
Territory secured for exclusive slave settlement, the 
insufficiency of the home supply to meet the neces- 
sities of the case would be more manifest than ever. 
With the advance in j.rice breeding would no doubt 
be stimulated in the older states; but tlie process of 
augmentation by natural increase would be slow, 
while, on the other hand, the high price of labour 
would greatly curtail the profits of cultivation. 
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe 
that the planters of the South would long tolerate 
an impediment which stood between them and the 
realization of vast schemes of aggrandizement, more 
especially when the maintenance of the obstacle 
could only be justified on grounds of morality 
which the whole South wnuld reject with disdain. 
The continued prohibition of the trade Nvonld he 
denounced as an unworthy subserviency to the 
fanaticism of foreign goveriinients-as (to .piote Ian- 



IRRESISTIBLE INDUCEMENTS. 249 

guage which has ah'eady been employed m this 
cause) " branding every slaveholder in the land 
with the mark of guilt and dishonour."* Slavehold- 
ers Avould be called upon as before, but in tones 
rendered more authoritative by the increased pre- 
stige which the cause of slavery would have acquired, 
to remove " the degrading stigma" from " their most . 
essential political institution," and, as the means at 
once of filling their pockets and clearing their fame, 
to repeal a law jarring alike with their moral and 
material susceptibilities. As opposed to these con- 
siderations, the only counter-emotive of the slightest 
weightf which can come into play, is the interest 

* Mr. John Forsytli, late miuister to Mexico, in the Mobile 
Register. 

f For I do not thuik that the provision in the Montgomery Con- 
stitution prohibiting the African slave trade will, by any one ac- 
quainted with the history of the party who framed it, or with the 
circumstances of the particular case, be so considered. The motives 
which dictated the provision are very clearly set forth by Mr. 
Everett in the following passage of a speech delivered some months 
ago : — " Now, to meet this state of thmgs and this interest, sup- 
posed to be vital in Virginia, the skilful men that were employed 
in drawing up a new constitution for the Confederate States South 
introduced in the first place a clause prohibiting the African slave 
trade. This was intended to have the further effect of conciliating 
foreign influence ; but then the next clause was that it should 
always be competent for a Southern Congress to prohibit the domestic 
slave trade, and in the debates at Montgomery on this clause no 
secret was made of the intention of these provisions. It Avas openly 
said that they meant to say to Virginia : ' The other border states 



-30 ONLY CULNTEK-MuTni:. 

of tlio lnvt'tling states in miiintaining tlu'ii' iiioiio- 
I>(.ly. Tli:it tliev Would liavc this iiiti-rcst in a 

join iho LViiifnleiiiev, and we allow the domestic slave trade to go 
on. Stand aloof fivni us, and we will amend that feature in the con- 
stitution which prohibits the African slave trade ; we will supply 
ourselves from that quarter.' Thus you see there was at once in 
the same breath a bribe and a njenace to Vir'Miiia, but for the time 
and as far as we can judge, not with much effect. The ' Ancient 
Dominion' had a character in the woild. Slie w;i.s not willing at 
home or aljixmd to assume the jiusition of an ancient powerful state 
standing alot)f from such a movement as this on the causes for which 
it.s authors inaugurated it, and then, montlis after, joining it that 
she might secuiv to hei-self the melancholy privilege of continuing 
to stock the pluntations of Alabama, Mississipi)i, and Luuisana." 

'Ihe party which enacted this prohibition is the party Avhidi 
l)assed and repealed the Missouri Compromise ; which accepted and 
repudiated the principle of the Nebraska Bill. In the former case 
the bargain was adhered to till the Southern party had ajipropriated 
its share of it ; in the latter till it was proved unequal to what was 
required of it. In both cases solemn engagements were set aside the 
moment they became inconvenient. Considering the circumstances 
under which the prohibition of the Afiican slave trade has been 
l)assed, is it likely that it Avill be regarded as more sacred than 
the Missouri Ci>mi)romise, or than the Nebraska Bill? The fol- 
lowing passage from a Floiida paper, the Soulhern CoH/ederact/, 
will show that the validity of the enactment has been already 
called in question, and on jiivcisely the same grounds as those on 
wliich the former engagements were challenged. " For God's sake, 
ami the sakt; of consistency, do not let us form a Union for the express 
purpose of maintaining and propagating African slavery ; and then, 
as the Southern Congress has done, confess our error by enacting a 
constitutional provision abolishing the African slave trade. Thf open- 
tjiff of tfte (rude is a vwtv (/iicition of expcdiincy, to he determined l>y 
I'-'jiiladve enactment hereo/ter, but not by a cnnstitntioucd pnnH^ion,'' 



\ 



PRESUMI'TION FKOM THE PAST. 25 I 

pecuiiiiiry sense is, indeed, aljundantly evident. But 
Avould this circumstanee be allowed permanently 
to prevail against not merely the equal pecuniary 
interests of other states in the opposite policy, but 
against the requirements, in the largest sense, of 
the whole Slave Republic ? A consideration of the 
course pursued under analogous circumstances on 
former occasions will show the extreme improba- 
bility of such a supposition. 

There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the 
past career of the Slave Power than the unanimity 
with which the whole body of slaveholders have 
concurred in supporting a given policy, so soon as it 
was clearly understood that the public interests of 
slavery prescribed its adoption ; yet with the line of 
policy which, in view of this necessity, has been 
actually followed, the interests of the Slave States 
have been far from being equally identified. The 
slave-breeding states of A'irginia and Kentucky had 
a very distinct and palpable advantage in opening 
new o-round for slave cultivation across the Missis- 
sippi. They thereby created a new market for their 
shives, and directly enhanced the value of their 
principal property. But the slave-working States of 
Alabama and Mississippi, which were buyers, not 
sellers, of slaves, which were producers, not con- 
sumers, of cotton, had a precisely opposite interest as 
reoards this enterprise. The effect of the policy of 



-3- SACUlI-lCi: UF I'AKTICULAU 

territorial extension in relation to them, was to raise 
the price of slaves— the produetive instrument which 
they em])]()yed ; and, on the other hand, to reduce 
the price of cotton— the euniniodity in whi( h thev 
dealt. It at once increased their outlay and dimin^ 
i.shed their returns. Yet this did not prevent the 
Avhole body of Slave States irom workinn; steadily 
together in promoting that policy which the main- 
tenance of the Slave Power, as a political system, 
dennmded. A still more striking instance of the 
readiness to sacrifice particular interests to the poli, 
tical ascendancy of the body is furnished by the 
conduct of the South in its dealings with Cuba. 
The annexation of this island has long been, as all 
the woi-ld knows, a darling project of Southern 
ambition. The bearing of the acquisition on the 
general interests of the South is very obvious. It 
would add to its domain a district of incomparable 
fertility. It would give it a commanding position in 
the Gulf of Mexico. It would increase its political 
weight in the I'niou. Hut there is one state in the 
South whi.-li could not fail to be injured in a 
pecuniary sense by the acquisition. The i)iincipal 
industry of the State of Louisiana is the same as 
that of Cuba — the cultivation of sugar. liut the 
soils of Louisiana are i"ar inferior to those of Cuba- 
se much so that the planters of that State are only 
able to hold their ground against the competitiol. 



TO GENERAL INTERESTS. 253 

of their Cuban rivals by the assistance of a high 
protective duty. Now the immediate consequence 
of the annexation of Cuba to the South would be 
the abolition of the protection which the planters of 
Louisiana now enjoy — an event which could not fail 
to be followed by the disappearance, in great part, 
of the artificial production which it sustains. Never- 
theless, Louisiana has formed no exception to the 
general eagerness of the South to appropriate Cuba : 
so far from this, it has ciu'iously enough happened 
that the man who has been most prominent among 
the piratical party who have advocated this step is 
Mr. Slidell,* the senator in Congress for the State of 
Louisiana. The sympathies which bind slaveholders 
together have thus always proved more poAverful 
than the particular interests which would sunder 
them ; and whatever course the necessities of slavery, 
as a system, have prescribed, that the whole array 
of slaveholders, with a disregard for private ends, 
which, in a good cause, would be the highest virtue, 
has never hesitated to pursue. 

The precedents, therefore, afforded by the past 
history of the South would lead us to expect that, 
so soon as the expediency of the African slave trade, 
in promoting the political interests of the Slave 
Power, became clear, the private advantage of par- 

* Tliis was the gentleman selected by Southern tact to recom- 
mend the cause of tlie South to Europe. 



254 SECTIONAL RESISTANCE POWERLESS 

ticuhir states would ]k- waived in deference to 
the requirements of the whole Confederacy. But, 
thnuo], this shouhl not be so— though the border 
states, wlien the trial came, should prove deficient 
in tliat public spirit which the working states in 
similar circumstances have never failed to exhibit- 
it is still quite inconceivable that what the public 
interests required should be permanently postponed 
to an opposition resting on such a basis. The men 
who now guide the councils of the Confederacy, 
from the moment of their accession to power to 
the present time, have never shrunk from any act 
essential to their ends : such men, having trium- 
phantly carried their party through a bloody civil 
war, would hardly allow themselves to be baffled 
by the sellish obstinacy of a few of their number. 
Indeed already the particular expedient to which, 
in the event of protracted obstinacy, recourse might 
be had, has been hinted at in no obscure terms. 
Mr. l)e Bow has advocated the reopening of the 
African slave trade upon the distinct ground that it 
is necessary to extend the basis of slavery by bring- 
ing slaves within the reach of a larger number 
than, at their present price, are able to purchase 
them. By this means, he argues, increased stability 
would be given to the institution in proportion as 
the numbers interested in maintaining it should be 
increased. Of the soundness of this p„lie^• from the 



BEFORE THE EXIGENCIES OF PUBLIC POLICY. 255 

stand-point of the Slave Power there can, I think, 
be no question ; and for the means of carrying it 
out in tlie last resort the extreme party could l^e 
at no loss. Let the reader observe the purpose to 
which this argument might be turned in the event 
of a schism between the breeding and the working 
states on the point in question. It is well known 
that the possession of a slave is the great object of 
the poor white's ambition, and the most effectual 
means of gratifying this ambition would be to make 
slaves cheap. To rally, then, to the cause of free 
trade in slaves this numerous class would be, in- 
deed, an easy task. Nothing more would be needed 
than to appeal to their most obvious interest, to 
give play to their most cherished passion. Every- 
where — in Virginia and Kentucky no less than in 
the states of the extreme South — the opening of the 
African slave trade would be hailed with enthusiasm 
by the great bulk of the people ; and thus, whenever 
convenience demanded it, the resistance of an inter- 
ested section might be overborne by the almost uni- 
versal voice of the rest of the community. 

To sum up the results of this part of the discus- 
sion : — on every hypothesis of Southern independ- 
ence, save that which would be equivalent to the 
early extinction of the Slave Power, the reopening 
of the African slave trade w^ould be recommended 
to the South by almost irresistible inducements — 



256 RESULTS. 

in one contingency by considerations wliich appccal 
to interests tliat are vital. Tlie only source of op- 
position would be the })rivate interests of the breed- 
ing states ; but i)ri\ate interests in the history of 
the South have always yielded to the demands of 
public i)()licy, and would probably do so in this case. 
In the event, however, of the breeding states proving 
refractory, the leaders of the extreme party would 
have the remedy in their own hands. The protest of 
a narrow^ minority would be wholly powerless to 
stem the tide of popular feeling which they have it 
in their power at any moment to evoke. 



^ol 



CHAPTER L\. 

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 

AYhat is the duty of European nations towards 
North America in the present crisis of its history ? 
I answer — to observe a strict neutrality between the 
contending parties, giving their moral support to 
tliat settlement of the question which is most in 
accordance with the general interest of the world. 
What ground is there for European interference in 
the quarrel ? In the present aspect of affairs abso- 
lutely none — none, that is to say, "which would not 
equally justify interference in every war which ever 
occurred. I say, in the present aspect of affairs, for 
in a different aspect of affairs I can well imagine 
that a different course would be justifiable, and 
might even become a duty. Supposing free society 
in North America in danger of being overborne by 
the Slave Power, would not the threatened predomi- 
nance in the new w^orld of a confederacy resting on 
slavery as its corner stone, and proclaiming the 
propagandism of slavery as its mission, be an occa- 
sion for the interference of civilized nations ? If 
there be reason that civilized nations should com- 
bine to resist the aggressions of Russia — a country 



25 S DUTY OF EUROPE — 

contnininrr the frorms of a vigorous and progressive 
civilization — would tlirre be none for opposing the 
estaldishnicnt of *' a barbarous and barbarizing 
Power " — a Power of whose existence shivery is the 
filial cause ? Hut that contingency is liapi)ily not 
now probable ; and in the present position of the 
American contest there is not even a plausible pre- 
text for intervention. It is unhappily true that our 
trade is suffering, that much distress prevails in our 
manufacturing districts, and that "we are threatened 
with even more serious consequences than have yet 
been felt. But is this a plausible pretext for inter- 
fering in a foreign Avar ? How can a great war be 
carried on without disturbing the commerce of the 
■world ? For what purpose are blockades instituted 
and permitted ? To say that, because we are injuri- 
ously affected by a blockade we will not recognize it, 
is simply to say that we do not choose to be bound 
by laws longer than it suits our convenience — is to 
throw away even the pretence of justice. But inter- 
ference in th(! present case would be not merely 
immoral. It would be futile — nay, if the relief of 
distress be really the object of those who urge it, it 
would, we can scarce doubt, aggravate a hundred- 
fold the evils it was intended to cure. For, suj)- 
posiiig the blockade of the Southern ports to be 
raised, to Avhat purpose would ])e this result if the 
war c(>ntiiiued ? It wouM, doubtless, carry comfort 



NEUTRALITY. 259 

to the Slave Confederac^y ; it might possibly bring a 
few hundred thousand bales of cotton to Europe ; 
but, in the present condition of the South, witli 
Northern armies encamped on its soil, it would not 
cause cotton to be grown, and still less would it 
open Northern markets to our manufactures. A 
fleet may raise a blockade, but it cannot compel a 
people to buy goods who do not want them. Inter- 
vention in America would, therefore, fail to restore 
trade to its normal channels ; and it is admittedly 
to a disturbance in the normal channels of trade far 
more than to scarcity of any single commodity — to 
a cessation of Northern demand fiir more than to 
an interruption of Southern supply — that the dis- 
tress now experienced in England is due.* Now 
the cessation of Northern demand will continue as 
long as the war continues ; so that the effect of 
intervention on manufacturing distress would de- 
pend on its effect on the duration of the war. And 
what would be this effect ? On such a subject it 
would be absurd to speak with confidence ; but 
there is one historical parallel which comes so close 
to the present case that we should do well to ponder 
it. In 1792 an armed intervention of European 
Powers took place in France. The allied sovereigns 
were not less confident of their ability to impose 
conditions on the French people, than are those who 

* See the Economist, 26th April, 1862. 



26o IMTOLICY OF IXTEKVENTION. 

now iirirc intervention in America of tlie ability of 
Fniiu-e :uul Kngland to .settle the aifairs of that 
continent. Hut we know how tlie intervention of 
1792 ended. Tlie s])irit ui' chniocracy, allying itself 
with the spirit of patriotism, kindled in the people 
of France an cner<ry which not merely drove back 
tl»e invaders from tlieir soil, but which carried the 
invaded people as conquerors over the length and 
breadth of continental Europe. Such was the eftect 
of a policy of intervention in the affairs of a great 
European nation. AVhat reason have we to expect 
a difterent result from a similar policy pursued in 
America ? Has democracy in America shown k-ss 
energy than in Europe ? Is its organization less 
effective ? Is tlie spirit of its patriotism less power- 
ful ? Arc the resources which it commands for war 
less extensive ? Or will the adversaries of demo- 
cracy fight it with greater advantage across the 
reach of the Atlantic ? I am assuming that an 
intervention, if attempted, would be resolutely car- 
ried out : that a mere interference by our navies 
would only exacerbate and prolong the quarrel is 
so obvious as to disentitle such a proposition to a 
moment's serious regard. The duty of neutrality is, 
therefore, in the present case as plainly marked out 
b}' the dictates of selfish policy as by the maxims of 
morality and law. \Miile intervention would fail 
to alleviate the evils under which we suffer, it would 



OBLIGATION TO RENDEK MORAL SUPPORT. 26 I 

almost certainly add to tliose evils the calamity of 
a great war — a war which would bequeath to the 
posterity of the combatants a legacy of mutual 
hatred, destined to embitter their relations for cen- 
turies to come. 

But the duty of neutrality is not incompatible 
with the rendering of moral support. AVe may be 
required to abstain from giving effect to our convic- 
tions by force, but we can never be justly required 
to abstain from advancing them by moral means. 
Nay, so long as the conflict between good and evil 
lasts, the obligation to sustain the right cause by 
sympathy and counsel is one from which we cannot 
relieve ourselves. It becomes, therefore, of extreme 
importance to consider what is that settlement of 
the American contest which deserves the moral 
support of Europe, 

There are two modes of terminating the present 
war, either of which must, it seems to me, be almost 
equally deprecated by every friend of freedom and 
of the American people : — such a triumph of the 
Southern party as would give to it the command of 
the unsettled districts to the south and west ; and 
such a reconstruction of the Union as would restore 
slavery to its former footing in the Republic. It is, 
I think, difficult to say which of these results Avould 
be the more extensively disastrous. The one would 
establish, amid all the eclat of victory, a slave em- 



^ 



262 INVO MODES OF SETTLEMENT 

pirc, cuiiiiuanding tlic resources) of lialf a continent, 
fired >vitli an ardent ambition, and cherishing vast 
designs of aggression and contpiest. The other 
woukl once more commit a moral and freedom, 
loving people — the main h()[)e of civilization in the 
New AVorhl — U) complicity with the damning guilt 
of slavery. The Union, restored on the principle of 
restricting slavery, would not indeed be the same 
Union as that in which the Slave Power was pre- 
dominant. But fortune is capricious in politics as 
in war. A few years might bring a change in the 
position of parties ; and a revolution of the wheel 
might once again commit the central government 
to the propagandists of slavery. Even should this 
worst result not happen, the corrupting influence 
of the alliance would remain ; the continued con- 
nivance at the perpetration of a great wrong would 
again force the Republic into degrading compliances, 
and the progress of political degeneracy, arrested for 
a moment by the shock of a violent reaction, would 
proceed as before. Between the evils of such a 
termination of the contest and the absolute triumph 
of the Slave Power, it would, perhaps, not be easy 
to decide. 

A year ago either of these results, almost equally 
to be deplored, seemed almost equally probable. 
The Northern people, taken by surprise, its leaders 
unaccustomed to power, its arsenals in the liands of 



EQUALLY TO BE DEPRECATED. 263 

its enemies, with traitors in its public offices, divided 
into parties holding discordant views and reconi- 
mending different courses, unanimous only in one 
strong wish — a desire at all events to uphold the 
Union — seemed for a thne prepared to make almost 
any concession which promised to secure this end. 
On the other hand, no vacillation marked the South. 
With the directness of men who, fixed in their ends, 
have little scruple in their choice of means, its 
leaders were urgent to precipitate the catastrophe. 
Their skilfully contrived treason had secured for 
them the principal forts and almost the whole mili- 
tary stores of the Republic. The most experienced 
officers in the United States army were their trusted 
agents, and were rapidly passing over to their side. 
Elated by success and confident in their resources, 
it seemed, at the outset of the contest, that they had 
all but accomplished their daring scheme— that little 
remained for them but to seize upon Washington, 
and dictate from the capitol the terms of separation. 
Such Avas the position of affairs when the contest 
opened. A year has passed, and contingencies 
which then appeared imminent seem no longer 
within the range of possible events. In presence 
of the searching test which real danger applies to 
political theories, and amid the enthusiasm kindled 
by war, the political education of the North has 
made rapid progress. The true source of disaffec 



264 rHAC'llLAL ISSUES AT TllL PUESENT TIME. 

tiuH t.. thr L'lii,,,,, su lull- cuiicfalcd by the arts of 
temporizing politicians, has been laid bare, and is no 
longer doubted. The impossibility of bringing free 
an.l slave societies into hanncnious co-operation 
under the same political system begins to be under- 
stood. The absolute necessity of, at all liazards, 
breaking the strength of the Slave Power, as thj 
first step towards re-establishing political society in 
North America, is rapidly becoming the accepted 
creed. Meanwhile, the advance of the Northern 
armies in the field has kept pace with that of 
opinion in the public assemblies, and, by an almost 
unbroken series of fruitful ^•ictories, the military 
superiority of the North seems now to be definitively 
established. In this aspect of afiairs-with anti-sla- 
very opinions making rapid way in the North, and 
Northern armies steadily advancing on the Souihern 
States-the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery 
retamed on its former footing, and still more the 
complete triun.ph of the Slave Power, may, it seems 
to me be fairly discharged from our consideration. 
^ay, I think, the actual state of facts, taken in con- 
nexion with the resources of the contending parties 
warrants us in going a step further, and holdincr 
that, in the absence of foreign intervention, the 
South must in the end succumb to its opponent. If 
this be so, what remains to be decided is this • on 
what terms sIk.II rh. .submission of the South be 



RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION, 265 

made ? — shall it return to tlie Union t«^ be ruled by 
the North, or secede under conditions to be pre- 
scribed by its conqueror ? Assuming these to be the 
practical issues involved in the struggle at the stage 
to which it has now attained, I shall proceed to con- 
sider to what determination of it the moral support 
of Europe should be given. 

It seems impossible to doubt that, at the present 
time, the prevailing purpose of the Northern people 
aims at no less than a complete reconstruction of 
the Union in its original proportions. The project 
admits of being regarded under several aspects : — 
how far is it justifiable ? — how far is it practicable ? 

how far is it expedient ? On each of these points 

some remarks suggest themselves. 

The forcible imposition on some millions of human 
beino-s of a form of government at variance with 
their wishes, is an act which undoubtedly demands 
special grounds for its justification. AVhether the 
South be regarded as a portion of the same nation 
with the North, or as a distinct people, it seems, on 
either view of the case, impossible that an attempt 
to subjugate, for the purpose of ruling, it, can be 
reconciled with the maxims of political morality 
which we regard in this country as applicable to the 
ordinary practice of civilized nations. If, then, 
these maxims admit of no exception, this branch of 
the argument is resolved, and the justification of the 



266 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOITII : 

present vicw> ol' the North mu.st be given up. But, 
wi-iting in a nation wliieh holds in subjection under 
despotic rule two liiin<hi'(l millions of another race 
it i^ scarcely necessary to say that maxims which 
condemn, M'ithout regard to circumstances, the im- 
position on a people of a foreign and despotic yoke 
nre no portion of the moral code of this country. 
The people of India may or may not desire to be 
governed by Great Britain ; but assuredly the AWshes 
of the people of India are not the grounds on which 
an English statesman would justify Great Britain in 
holding that country in subjection. It follows, then, 
that it js consistent Avith political morality, as con- 
ceived in this country, that in certain cases the 
principles of constitutional government and those of 
non-intervention should be set aside, and that a 
government should compel a portion of its subjects, 
or a people should intervene to compel another 
people, to accept a form of government at variance 
with the wishes of those on whom it is imposed.* 

* " There arc few questions wliich more require to bo taken in 
liand by ethical and political philosophers, with a view to establish 
some rule or criterion whereby the justifiableness of intervening in 
the affairs of other countries, and (what is sometimes fully as ques- 
tionable) the justifiableness of refraining from intervention, may bo 
brought to a definite and rational test. Whoever attempts this 
will bo led to recognize more than one fundamental distinction, not 
yet by any means familiar to tlio public mind, and in general quite 
lottt sight of by those who write in strains of indignant morality on 
tlif subj.M't. lli.'iv is a great difl't-renco (for example) between the 



now FAR JUSTIFIABLE. 267 

Now, if it be admitted that circumstances can in any 
case create an exception to the ordinary rules of 
political and international practice regarded as bind- 
ing upon civilized nations, we need have little hesi- 

case in which the nations concerned are of the same, or something 
like the same, degree of civilization, and that in which one of the 
parties to the situation is of a high, and the other of a very low, 
grade of social improvement. To suppose that the same interna- 
tional customs, and the same rules of international morality, can ob- 
tain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized 
nations and barbarians, is a grave error, and one which no statesman 
can ftdl into, however it may be with those who, from a safe and 
unresponsible position, criticize statesmen. Among many reasons 
why the same rules cannot be applicable to situations so ilifferent, 
the two folloAving are among the most important. In the first place, 
the rules of ordinary international morality imply reciprocity. But 
barbarians will not reciprocate. They cannot be depended on for 
observing any rules. Their minds are not capable of so gTeat an 
effort, nor their Avill sufficiently under the influence of distant 
motives. In the next place, nations which are still barbarous 
have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be 
for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in sub- 
jection by foreigners. Independence and nationality, so essential 
to the due growth and development of a peoi:)le further advanced 
in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs. The sacred 
duties wliich civilized nations owe to the independence and na- 
tionality of each other, are not binding towards those to whom 
nationality and independence are either a certain evil, or at best a 
questionable good. The Romans were not the most clean-handed 
of conquerors, yet would it have been better for Gaul and Spain, 
Numidia and Dacia, never to have formed part of the Eoman Em- 
pire 1 To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous 
people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who 
eo speaks has never considered the subject. A violation of great 
principles of morality it may easily be : but barbarians have no 



-68 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : 

tatiou ill asserting that the present case is excep- 
tional. 

What is the fact with which we have to deal? A 
few hundred thousand slaveholders break loose from 
the political system with whicli they were connected, 
and erect a confederacy on the avowed basis of sla- 
very. From the past history of these men, and from 
the condition of society presented in the country 
wdiich they govern, Ave have the clearest proofs as to 
what this scheme involves. AYe know that it in- 
volves tlie maintenance of a social system at once 
retrograde and aggressive— retrogi-ade towards those 
on whom it is imposed, and aggressive towards the 
communities with wdiich it comes into contact. AVe 
know that it involves the design of extending the 
power of this confederation, and, with its power, the 
worst form of human servitude which mankind has 
ever seen, over the fairest portions of the New 
World. We know that in all probability— with a 
probability approaching to certainty— it involves an 
attempt to vqx'ivg a great scandal, the African slave 
trade— a scandal wliicli all Christian nations have 
agreed to stigmatize, and which Great Britain in 

rights as a na/ion except a right to such treatment as may, at tlie 
earnest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The oiUy moral 
laws for the relation between a ciWlizo.l and a barbarous govern- 
ment, are the universal rules of morality between man and m'an."— 
A Fexo Words on Non-Int^rwntion, by J. S. ]\IiU. Frasers Magazine, 
l)ecember, 1859. 



HOW FAR JUSTIFIABLE. 269 

particular has for half a century devoted her best 
influence, and a vast outlay of treasure, to suppress. 
We know that this body aims at political independ- 
ence, not for that lawful purpose Avhich makes 
political independence the first of national rights— 
the purpose of working out a people's proper destiny 
—but for a purpose which makes it the greatest of 
national crimes— the purpose of riveting dependence 
upon another race— the purpose of extending and 
consolidating a barbarous tjTanny. Now, these 
being the ends for which the Southern Confederacy 
seek^ to establish itself, is its subjugation by the 
North justifiable ? I hold that the right is as clear 
as the right to put doTN^i murder or piracy. As a.' 
nation, we, in common with civilized Europe, have 
proscribed as piracy the African slave trade. In the 
opinion of competent judges the inter-state slave 
trade in the South involves enormities as great as 
any that have been enacted on the coast of Guinea 
or in the middle passage;* and it is certain that the 

* " I affirm that there exists in the United States a slave trade, 
not less odious or demoralizing, nay, I do in my conscience believe, 
anore odious and more demoralizing than that which is cai-ned on 
between Africa and Brazil. North Carolina and Virguua are to 
Louisiana and Alabama what Congo is to Eio Janeiro. . . Cxod 
forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave ti.de in any 
form ' But I do thmk this its worst form. Bad enough it is tha 
civilized men should sail to an uncivihzed quarter of the world 
where slavery exists, should there buy ^vretched barbarians, and 
should carry them away to labour in a distant land : bad enough . 



270 SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : 

purpose for which the Coiiiederacy is established — 
the appropriation of the Territories for slave culti- 
vation — cannot be carried into effect without ffivin"; 
a powerful impulse certainly to one, and probably 
to both, of those crimes. Unless, therefore, we are 
prepared to retreat from the position which, as a 
nation, wc liave deliberately taken u\) and consis- 
tentl}' held for half a century, we cannot deny that 
the overtlirow of the Southern Confederacy would 
be a public benefit ; and, even though we should 
question the perfect purity of the motives of those 
who undertake it, the act itself must be acknow- 
ledged as a service to the civilized world. 

That the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy 
is justifiable — so far as the duties of the North to 

But that a civilized man, a l)aptized man, a man proud of being a 
citizen of a free state, a man frequenting a Christian church, should 
breed slaves for exportation, and, if the whole horrible truth must 
be told, should even beget slaves for exportation, should see chil- 
dren, sometimes his own children, gambolling around him from 
infancy, should watch their growth, should become familiar with 
their faces, and should then sell them for four or five hundred 
dollars a head, and send tliem to lead in a remote country a life 
which is a lingering death, a life about which the best thing that 
can be said is that it is sure to be short ; this does, I own, excitu 
a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade 
which is the curse of the African coast. And mark : I am not 
speaking of any rare case, of any instance of eccentric depravity. 1 
am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between 
Dublin and Liverpool, or as the trade in coals between the Tyno 
and tin' l-hames." — Lord Marnulay's Speech on the Sugar Diitien. 



HOW FAR PRACTICABLE. 2,71 



that community are concerned— appears to me, 
therefore, as clear as any doctrine in the code of 
political ethics. But, being justifiable, is it prac- 
ticable ? Into the general merits of this branch of 
the argument it would not become me to enter ; 
but, without pretending to pronounce an opinion on 
the' ability of the North to subdue the revolted 
states, it may be permitted me to advert to some 
considerations bearing upon this part of the case 
which do not appear to have received from those 
who have undertaken to discuss it that degree of 
attention to which their importance would seem to 

entitle them. 

The argument of those who deny the abdity ol 
the North to eifect its purpose of reconstructmg 
the Union rests, for the most part, on historical ana- 
loc^ies, and, more particularly, on the successful resist- 
ance made by the ancestors of the present belliger- 
ents to the authority of Great Britain. Now a brief 
consideration will show that the present case differs 
from all previous examples of successful revolt m 
some important respects, and we shaU find that, m 
every instance in which the analog>^ fails, the dif- 
ference points in the same direction-it indicates 
neater facility of conquest in the present struggle. 
In the parallel furnished by the revolutionary war 
of the last century it is an obvious point of difference 
that Great Britain, in that case, carried on the con- 



272 SrBJUGATIoX OF THE SOUTH : 

test uiulor tIk^ fnorinoiis disadvantage of beino- separ- 
ated from litT enemy by an intervening ocean— a 
disadvantage of such magnitude as, in the opinion 
of Do Tocqueville, to detract indefinitely from the 
prowess of the vietors—whcn-as now the North 
stands close t(j its foe. Such u difference is almost 
enougli t.. deprive of all force arguments drawn 
from the analogy of the two cases; yet the circum- 
stance has been scarcely adverted to by those who 
have most strenuously pressed the analogv. But 
passing by a point which is peculiar to the compari- 
son with the war of independence, there are others 
in whicli the present is distinguished from all pre- 
vious examples of insurrectionary success. 

And, first, while the South is in the present war 
liable to an absolute interruption of its external 
trade, it is of all countries which ever existed the 
least capable of encountering such a crisis. I say, 
the South is liable to an absolute interruption of its 
external trade, for, notwithstanding the exploits of 
the Merrimac, it is quite inconceivable— having re- 
gard t(^ the mercantile marine and tlie mechanical 
resources of the contending parties— that the North 
should not l)e able in the long run to maintain a 
permanent superiority at sea. It may, therefore, be 
assumed that the new Confederacy will be absolutely 
cut off iVom commci'cial intercourse with foreign 
nations ; and, this being so, it is obvious further to 



HOW FAU PRACTTCABLE. 273 

remark that of all communities in the world it is 
the one least prepared to meet such an emergency— 
the least capable of supplying its own wants. To 
feel convinced of this we have but to recall its 
industrial system— a system composed of slaves 
brutalized by ignorance and tyranny, accustomed 
to perform a few routine operations, and utterly 
inefficient if taken from their ordinary tasks. It is 
true, indeed, the crisis has compelled a certain devi- 
ation from the old routine ; the cultivation of corn 
lias already in some places been substituted for that 
of cotton. But it cannot be doubted that the change 
has been effected at a great loss of industrial power, 
and, however slaves may be turned from one kind 
of agricultural pursuit to another, beyond the range 
of agriculture they must be absolutely useless. The 
plantation slave of the South can never be converted 
into a skilled artisan : consequently all those com- 
modities for the supply of which the South has been 
accustomed to rely on the industrial skill of foreign 
countries it must now be content to dispense with 
altogether. Now amongst such commodities are 
many which are absolutely essential for the conduct 
of war. The consideration, therefore, is one which 
touches a vital point in the ability of the South to 
maintain a prolonged resistance. Hitherto, by its 
plunder of the military stores of the United States 
while its leaders were in possession of the govei-n- 



IJ^ SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH : 

ment, and by the fruits of its early victories, it has 
been enabled to maintain itself ; but, as its present 
supplies become exhausted and cease to be replen- 
ished by successes in the field, it is not easy to see 
liow this necessity can be met. 

Another circumstance which has been almost 
■wholly overlooked in this argument, is the change 
which railways may effect in the facilities for aggres- 
sive warfare. In none of those cases in which a war 
of independence has been maintained with success 
against the superior forces of an invader has this 
resource been available. This consideration applies 
directly to a point on which great stress has been 
laid by the partisans of the South — the difficulties 
ofi"ered to conquest by mere vastness of extent. 
There can, I suppose, be no doubt that this circum- 
stance gives a great advantage to the party whicli 
is on the defensive , but a country traversed by 
railways is, for practical purposes, reduced to a 
tenth of its real size. That the novel conditions 
thus imported into military tactics have not been 
overlooked l)y tlie commanders on either side is 
fully proved by the nature of their plans, which 
have been conceived chiefly ■svith a view to utilizing 
this new arm of warfare. Thus the expeditions to 
Ihitfci'.is, to Roanoke Island, and to Port Royal, 
appear now to have been dictated by a consideration 
of the (•oiiiiiiiiiid coiifciTcd by these positions over 



HOW FAli PRACTICABLE. 275 

the railways which connect the Carolinas with Vir- 
ginia on the one hand, and with Georgia on the 
other. Again, the importance of Nashville, as a 
strategical point, consists in its being the central 
terminus of three grand lines, proceeding respec- 
tively from Washington, from Richmond, and from 
Charleston to the West; and the possession of 
Corinth was rendered important by an analogous 
reason. Railways have thus introduced a new 
element into warfare of sufficient importance to 
modify the whole plan of a campaign ; and railways 
apply directly to overcoming the impediment of 
distance-the circumstance which has been urged 
as the most insuperable obstacle to the conquest of 
the South.* 

* "This is the first great war, if we except the Italian campaign, 
in which railways, on any large scale, have figured in warhke ope- 
Lns. How greatly they may modify the ordn^ary canons of 
strategy it is vet impossible to tell. Already many movements have 
talen place, \and positions heen occupied and abandoned whxch, 
except npo^ the supposition of the new element mtroduced by 

aUways, would have been utterly irreconcilable w.t^r the old pruv 
^.ks of securin. the base and protecting the flanks of an amy 
;^ etherHs a^railway, troops may be moved thr-ough a hunch^ 
IL in the time reqvured to march over twenty. And .c. .ersd 
Tw nty n^des to be marched over xnay chance to neutrah.e the benefi s 

7aLdred miles of rail. But not only is ^.^^^^^ 

element introduced into the calculations of mditary distances bj 

e unequal means of locomotion available at different ponits, bu 

nAmeL the vastness itself of the ditferent lines of radway give 

iTa distinct and special class of problems. It is easy to destroy 



276 RKCONSTRUCTION OF Till- UNION: 

Again, in no war of independence wliicli has 
been successfully waged has the invaded nation in- 
cluded among its inhabitants a multitude, one-third 
of its wliole number, who were either positively 
hostile, or at least absolutely indifferent to the 
cause. Sucli a multitude exists in tlie midst of the 
Southern p()i)ulation ; and by this hostile or indif- 
ferent multitude the whole productive industry of 
the country is carried on. Now, as the Federal 
armies advance into the Southern States, what Avill 
be the behaviour of the negro population ? They 
will probably do as they have done hitherto : they 
will fly to the Federal lines ; and though they 
should not rise in insurrection, they will at least 
cease to work. Xow when the negroes cease to 
work, how is the South to maintain an army ? The 
"white trash" may be made to fight, but they will 
scarcely be made to work — at all events they will be 
unable to do both. It would seem, therefore, that, 
so soon as the South is once thoroughly penetrated 

twenty miles of railway, and even a hundred. A Inindred miles 
were lately destroyed by the Confederates. But it would be very 
didicult to destroy several thousand. Moreover, the extent of the 
country must always make it doubtful at what point it becomes 
expedient to destroy so useful an auxiliary until it is found too late 
to do so. It follows, we think, pretty conclusively, the cardinal 
maxim in any American war involving large tracts of cotintry must 
be to take possession of th(^ railroads."— A^a^tona^ Ii'^i-itu; April. 
1862, p. 496. 



HOW FAR EXPEDIENT. 277 

by the Northern armies, a collapse of its productive 
system is inevitable. 

These are some of the circumstances in which the 
present contest in America differs from those suc- 
cessful wars of defence with which it is usual to 
compare it. I am ftir from intending to say that 
the considerations which have been adduced prove 
the possibility of accomplishing the object which the 
North has now in view ; but they seem to me to 
show that the facilities for that purpose are greater 
than is commonly supposed, and they at least sug- 
o-est caution against building hasty conclusions upon 
inapplicable precedents. 

But, thirdly, assuming the reconstruction of the 
Union to be practicable, is it expedient ? And here 
we are met at once by the consideration— how is the 
conquered South to be governed*? I can see but 
one way in which this can be effected— by the over- 
throw of representative institutions in the Southern 
States, and the substitution of a centralized despot- 
ism wielded by the Federal government. I cannot 
imagine that there could be any escape from this 
course ; for, granting that in certain districts of the 
South there might be a considerable element of 
population favourable to the Union, it is impossible 
to doubt that in the main the people would be 
thoroughly disaffected ; and how are popular insti- 
tutions°to^3e worked through the agency of a disaf- 



278 NECESSITY OF A KECOUESE TO 

tfftL'd people ? A recourse to despotic expedients 
would, therefore, so far as we can judge, be forced 
ui)on the North. Now, it is evident that such a 
step involves considerations of the greatest gravity 
— considerations before wliich the citizens of the 
Union may well pause and ponder. If, indeed, the 
consequences of this policy could be certainly con- 
fined within the designed limits, there would, per- 
haps, be little need for hesitation. At the worst, it 
would be no more than the substitution of one form 
of arbitrary power for another— of a civilized for a 
barbarous despotism — and if the new o-overnment 
were only equal to its task of reconstructing South- 
ern society, its advent would be wholly a blessing. 
But despotic principles once introduced into the 
system of the Federal government, is it conceivable 
that their influente would end in the attainment of 
the object for the accomplishment of which they 
were at the first invoked? Is it likely that the same 
men, who should be exercising arbitrary authority 
over the whole of the Southern States, would be 
content, in governing the Northern, to confine them- 
selves M^ithin constitutional bounds ? Would there 
not be the danger that habits acquired in ruling one 
division of the republic would afil'ct modes of action 
in the other, and that, so soon as popular institu- 
tions became troublesome in tlie working, they 
would be superseded in favour of the more direct 



DESrOTlC EXPEDIENTS. ^79 



and obvioLis expedients of despotism ? Besides it 
must be remembered that something more would be 
required to govern a disaffected South than a staff 
of officials. The bureaucracy would need to be sup- 
ported by an army, and the army would of necessity 
be at the disposal of the central government. It 
would be easy, of course, to prescribe constitutional 
rules, to define with precision the limits of adminis- 
trative authority; but when the temper of arbitrary 
sway had been formed, when the example of an 
arbitrary system was constantly present to the eye 
and familiar to the thoughts, when the means of 
giving effect to arbitrary tastes were at hand, it is 
difficult to believe that the barrier of forms and 
definitions would be long respected, and that sooner 
or later the attempt would not be made to give to 
the principles of arbitrary government a more ex- 
tended application. The task of holding the South 
in subjection would thus, as it seems to me, inevita- 
bly imperil the cause of popular institutions m 
North America. Now, the loss of popular govern- 
ment would be a heavy price to pay for the subju- 
gation of the South, even though that subjugation 
involved the overthrow of the Slave Power. 

It is satisfactory to find that there are politicians 
in America who are alive to the momentous interests 
which this aspect of the question involves. In a 
remarkable speech lately delivered in New \ork, 



a8o I'l.AN luK DISPENSING WITH DKbi'OTiSM 

tin- (iMH.uvr tc. nhieli 1 have adverted was very fairly 
^nid with nmcli courage exposed. The speaker, 
however, c.nt.n.hd that, by boldly following out 
a policy of eiuaiMipation-by striking at the root of 
disaffection through its cans,— the danger in ques- 
tion might be evaded. The views expressed are so 
important, and, looking at the recent course of 
events, give so much promise of becoming fruitful, 
that I think it right to state tli<-m in the eloquent 
words of their author. 

" Is this government, in struggling against rebel- 
lion, in re-establishing its authoritj^, reduced to a 
policy which would nearly obliterate the line separ- 
ating democracy from absolutism ? h it reallv 
unable to stand this test of its character ? For tlifs 
is the true test of the experiment. If our demo- 
cratic institutions pass this crisis unimpaired, they 
will be stronger than ever ; if not, the decline will 
be rapid and irremediable. But can thev pass it 
unimpaired ? Yes. This republic has he'r destiny 
in her hands. She may transform her greatest 
danger and distress into the greatest triumph of her 
principles. Tliere would have been no rebellion 
had there not been a despotic interest incompatible' 
with the spirit of her democratic institutions ; and 
she has the glorious and inestimal)le juuvilege of 
suppressing this rebellion, by enlarging Iil).rty in- 
stead of restraining it, l,y granting rights instead ..1- 



BY REFORMING SOUTHERN SOCIETY 28 1 

violating them. . . . How can you rely upon the 
Southern people unless they are sincerely loyal, 
and how can they be sincerely loyal as long as their 
circumstances are such as to make disloyalty the 
natural condition of their desires and aspirations ? 
They cannot be faithful unless their desires and 
aspirations change. And how can you change 
them? By opening before them new prospects 
and a new future. Look at the other side of the 
picture. Imagine slavery were destroyed in con- 
sequence of this rebellion. Slavery, once destroyed, 
can never be restored. . . . Southern society being, 
with all its habits and interests, no longer identified 
with slavery, that element of the population will rise 
to prominent influence which most easily identifies 
itself with free labour— I mean the non-slaveholding 
people of the South. They have been held in a sort 
of moral subjection by the great slave-lords. Xot 
for themselves but for them they were disloyal. 
The destruction of slavery will wipe out the prestige 
of their former rulers ; it will lift the yoke from 
their necks ; they will soon think for themselves, 
and thinking freely they will not fail to understand 
their true interests. They will find in free labour 
society their natural element ; and free labour 
society is naturally loyal to the Union. Let the 
old political leaders fret as they please, it is the 
free labour majority that will give to societv its 



282 THK CUXDITIUN uF TIMK IGNORED. 

<-liaractL'r and tone. This is what I nuan by so 
reforming Southern society as iu make loyalty to 
the Union its natural temper and disposition. This 
clone, the necessity of a military occupatiun, the rule 
of force, M-ill cease; cur political life will soon re- 
turn to the beaten track of self-government, and the 
restored Union may safely trust itself to the good 
faitli of a reformed people. The antagonistic ele- 
nieiit which continually struggled against the vital 
pruiciples of our system of government once removed, 
we shall be a truly united people, with common 
principles, common interests, common hopes, and a 
common future."* 

Such is the spirit in which the question of recon- 
structing the Ujiion is now approached by some of 
the leading minds of the North, and such are the 
views which are noAV rapidly gaining ground through 
the country. AMiile, however, readily acknowledging 
the proof which these speculations afford at once of 
a full appreciation of the real difficulties to be en- 
countered and of philosophic boldness in meeting 
them, I am unable to see that the remedy suggested 
would obviate the danger which, it is admitted, 
would exist. Ill the reasoning which I have cpioted 
no account appears to be taken of the element of 
time, so all important to a realization of the results 

• Specih of tho II,.n. Carl S.-hurz, ,hMsovoi\ in thr Cnoi.rr 
Iiihtitutc, New York, 6tli Mmvli. jH^j. 



DISTURBING EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION. 283 

anticipated. The abolition of slavery, it is truly 
said, would strike directly at the authority of the 
slave-lords. The stigma at present affixed to in- 
dustry being removed, the industrial classes would 
quickly rise in social importance, and a free labour- 
ing population would doubtless in the end predomi- 
nate in the South. But these results could not 
be accomplished in a moment. A disloyal people 
would not be rendered loyal by a single stroke of 
the manumitter's wand — 

reruni iiiipcriis hominumque 
Tot tantisque minor, quern ter viiidicta quaterque 
Imposita hand unquaiii misera formidino privet. 

The habits of obedience are not easily broken 
tht^ough, traditional feelings are powerful, and the 
influence of the slave-lords would probably long 
outlive the institution from which it derives its 
strength. A considerable period would, therefore, 
of necessity, elapse before that pervading sentiment 
of loyalty could be established, under the guidance 
of which alone, as all admit, the rule of the Union 
could be safely entrusted to popular institutions. 

But there is another result which might follow 
from the conquest of the South and the overthrow of 
slavery, the probable effects of which on the settle- 
ment of Southern society it may be worth while for 
a moment to consider. Is it not probable that, in 
the case we now contemplate, there would be an 



284 DISTIKBING EFFtCTb; OF IMMIGIIATION. 

extensive iinnii^rratioii into the Southern States of 
free settlers fr.,111 tlu- Xortli ? And wliat wouhl be 
the effect of tliis m-\v iii^edient on tlie society of 
the Soutli ? I inin^niie it woukl in the main be a 
wholesome one. The new settlers woukl cany with 
them the ideas, the enterprise, the progressive spirit 
of free society, and would act as a leaven of loyalty 
on the disaffection of the South ; but I think it is 
equally j.laiii they would introduce into Southern 
society, at all events for some time, a new element 
of disturbance. They would appear there as intru- 
ders, as the missionaries of a new social and political 
faith— a faith hateful to the old dominion, as living 
monuments of the humiliation of the Southern peo°. 
pie. Is it not inevitable that 1)etween them and the 
old aristocracy a bitter feud would spring up— a 
iViid which would soon be exasperated by mutual 
injuries, and might not impossibly be transmitted, 
as a heritage of hatred, to future generations ? Xow 
such a conditi(.n of society would l,e little favourable 
to the sudden conversion of the South to sentiments 
of loyalty ; and, pending this happy consummation, 
how is the South to be governed? AVe are thus 
forced back upon our original difhculty— the diffi. 
culty of governing a disaffected South, from which 
ir seems to me the path of despotism offers the only 
escape. 

For tliesr rcaMms, 1 .-aiinor rl,i„k :l,at the X(,rth is 



TRITE rOLICY FOR THE NORTH. 285 

well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union 
in its original proportions. At the same time I am 
far from°thinldng that the time for peace has yet 
arrived. What, it seems to me, the occasion de- 
mands, and what, I think, the moral feeling of 
Europe should support the North in striving for, is 
a degree of success which shall compel the South to 
accept terms of separation, such as the progress of / 
civilization in America and the advancement of , 
human interests throughout the world imperatively 
require. To determine the exact amount of conces- 
sion on the part of the South which would satisfy 
these conditions is no part of my purpose. The 
attempt would be futile. It will suffice that I 
indicate as distinctly as I can that settlement of 
the controversy which would, in my judgment, 
adequately secure the ends proposed, and which on 
the whole is most to be desired. 

Any scheme for the readjustment of political 
society in North America ought, it seems to me, 
to embrace two leading ol>iects :-ist, the greatest 
practical curtailment of the domain of the Slave 
Power ; and 2nd, the reabsorption into the sphere 
of free society of as much of the present population 
of the Slave States as can be reabsorbed without 
detriment to the interests of freedom. On the 
assumption which I have made of the ability of the 
Northern people to subdue the South, these t.o 



-l86 PKtLLIAU POSITION OF 

conditions resolve themselves into one. The only 
obstacle to a complete reconstruction of the Union 
lies, on this assumption, in the difficulty of com- 
bining in the same political system forms of society 
so different as those presented by the Northern and 
Southern States. AVe may then, for the purpose of 
our discussion, confine our attention to the latter of 
the two conditions which have been laid down. 

It will be remembered that, in considering, in a 
former chapter, the consequences of confining the 
Southern Confederacy within the area already settled 
under slavery, it was pointed out that slavery, thus 
restricted, would l)c at once arrested in its develop- 
ment, and that tlic clieck given to tlie system 
would be first felt in the older or breeding states. 
In these states the profits from slavery being derived 
chiefly from the sale, not from the employment, of 
slaves, so soon as the creation of new markets for 
the human stock was precluded, the reasons for 
maintaining the institution Avould cease. The slave- 
holders, obliged henceforward to look to the soil as 
the sole source of their profits, would be forced upon 
improved methods of cultivation ; and bcfdre tlie 
necessity for improved methods slavery would per- 
force disapi)ear. Now, this being tlic ])()siti()n oi' 
slavery in the breeding states, it is evident that, so 
soon as tlie progress of the Northern armies shall 
liave made it clear that the Slave Power must fail in 



THE BORDER STATES. 287 

its orio-inal design — still more when the South is 
menaced with positive curtailment of its dominions 
—the slaveholders of these states will understand 
that, so far as their interests are concerned, the 
institution is doomed. But this conviction will 
be brought home to them by still more cogent 
reasons than those which reflection on their eco- 
nomic condition would furnish. The breeding states 
are also the border states, and they are therefore the 
states on which the evils of invasion must in the 
first instance fall. Already nearly the Avhole of 
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, is in 
possession of the Northern armies. Observe, then, 
the light in Avhich, in the present aspect of affairs, the 
question of secession must present itself to a border 
slaveholder. He sees that for him the extinction of 
slavery is rendered certain in an early future. His 
slaves are flying to the Federal armies. His country 
is suffering all the evils of invasion. The tie which 
bound him to the Slave Power is hopelessly severed. 
In this position of affairs is it not probable that, 
were the opportunity of re-establishing social order 
upon a new basis presented to him, he would seize 
it, and, the old system of society having irrevocably 
pLsed'away, that he would in good faith cast in his 
lot with a new order of things ? 

Such an opportunity has been created for the 
border states by the adoption by Congress of Mr. 



288 Mil. LI N'COLN S proposal: its OPPOKTrXKNESS. 

Lincoln's recent message, reoomniending a co-opera- 
tion on the part of the Federal Government witli 
such states as are willing to accept a policy of 
emaniipation. Tlie scheme, indeed, has been pro- 
nounced in this country to be chimerical — framed 
less Avith a view to the actual exigencies of the case 
than to catch the applause of Europe. I venture to 
say that never was criticism *less appropriate, or 
censure more unjust. Practicality and unaffected 
earnestness of purpose are written in every line of 
the message. In the full knowledge evinced of the 
actual circumstances of the border states, combined 
Avith the adroitness with whicli advantage is taken 
of their peculiar position as affected by passino- 
events, there is displayed a rare political sagacity, 
which is not more creditable to its author than is the 
genuine sincerity which shines through his simple 
and weighty words. Had the scheme indeed been 
propounded at the outset of the contest (as so many 
well-meaning empirics among us were forward to 
advise) — while the Slave Power was yet unbroken, 
and the j)r()spects of a future more prosperous than 
it had } et known seemed to be opening before it, 
there would have been some point in the strictures 
which have been indulged in, some ground for invi- 
dious comment ; but, proposed at the present time, 
it is, as I venture to think, a suggestion than wliidi 



FREE CULTIVATORS IN THE BORDER STATES. 289 

few more wise or more important have ever been 
submitted to a legislative body. 

Returning to our argument, it has been seen that, 
in the event of the tide of war being decisively 
turned against the South, the position, alike indus- 
trial and geographical, of the border states would 
greatly favour a reconstruction of society in them 
upon principles of freedom. Now, this result would 
be powerfully helped forward by another circum- 
stance in respect to which they differ from the 
more southern states of the Confederacy — the pre- 
sence in their population of a large element of free 
cultivators. This interest, already in some of the 
border states* almost balancing that of slavery, 
would, it is evident, in the altered condition of af- 
fairs, rise rapidly into importance. Occupying that 
place in the social arrangements towards which the 

* For example in Missouri. The position of slavery in that 
state in 1856 is thus described by Mr. Weston :— " In large por- 
tions of INIissouri slavery has never existed to any important 
extent. The counties adjoining Iowa, ten in number, contained in 
185657,235 whites and only 871 slaves. Of the one hundred 
and seven counties ninety-five, occupying four-fifths of the area of 
the state, contained in 1856 669,921 whites, and only 57,47 ^ 
slaves, or nearly twelve to one. In twenty-five of these counties 
there was an absolute decrease of the number of slaves from 1850 to 
1856. In the whole ninety-five counties the mcrease of slaves in 
that period was only 2,264. Slavery is not strong, and has never 
been so, except m twelve counties in the centre of the state, 
embracing about one-fifth of its area, and lying principally upon 
the Missouri river."— Progress of Slavery, p. 14- 



»9 



290 



FACILITIES FOR INCORPORATION. 



whole connn unity was obviously tending, constantly 
increasing in numbers as the progress of emanci- 
pation brought new recruits to its ranks — u nucleus 
of loyalty around which all the l)est elements of 
society might gather — this section of the population 
would easily take tlie lead in the politics of their 
several states, would give tone to the whole com- 
munitv, and determine its march. 

It would thus seem that, the might of the Slave 
Power once eftectually broken, the incorporation 
of the border states into a social system based on 
industrial freedom would not present any insuper- 
able difficulties. It would be only necessary to give 
support to tendencies which the actual state of 
things would call at once into operation. Now, 
what might be done in the border states, where a 
slave society actually exists, might, it is evident, be 
accomj^lished with much greater facility in those 
districts of the South which, though enrolled as 
slave states, have in reality yet to be colonized — 
for example, in Texas and Arkansas. In Texas 
population is represented by considerabl}^ less than 
one person to the square mile ; in Arkansas, by 
four ; and of this sprinkling of people three-fourths 
in both states are composed of free persons. To the 
recovery of these states to the dominion of freedom 
there would at least be no social or political obsta- 
cles wliich might not be easily overcome. Arkansas 



THE LINE OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 29 I 

and Texas recovered, Louisiana alone of the states 
on the west of the Mississippi would remain to the 
Slave Power ; and is it not possible that Louisiana 
also might be recovered to freedom ? Doubtless its 
pro-slavery tendencies are intensely strong ; its slave 
population almost equals the free ; but the state is 
a small one, and the prize would be worth an ex- 
traordinary effort. Louisiana conquered, Arkansas 
and Texas recovered to freedom, the whole course 
of the Mississippi would be opened to the Western 
States ; and the Slave Power— shut up within its 
narrowed domain, bounded on one side by the Gulf 
of Mexico and the ocean, on the other by the line 
of the Alleghanies and the Mississippi,— might with 
some confidence be left to that process of natural 
decay which slave institutions, arrested in their 
expansion, inevitably entail. 

I have hitherto discussed this question with refer- 
ence to the interests of the Northern people on the 
one hand, and to those of civilization, as identified 
with the overthrow of the Slave Power, on the other. 
But there is another interest involved in the settle- 
ment of the American quarrel which may not seem 
at once to be identical with either of these— the 
interest of the present race of negro slaves. The 
mode of terminating the struggle which I have 
indicated as that which seems to me on the whole 



iq* 



292 THE NEGRO QUESTION. 

most desirable, though, if realized, it would probably 
bring freedom to a million of slaves, would yet, it is 
not to be denied, leave some three millions still in 
bondage ; and there are those who will probably 
think that this after all would be but a sorry result 
fi'om the great opportunities of the present con- 
juncture, and from the great sacrifices which it has 
already cost. Far wiser, it will be said, as well as 
more generous would it be, now that the hand 
has been put to the plough, not to look back till the 
work has been effectually accomplished, and the 
great wrong once for all rased out. AVitli the 
aspirations of those who hold this language I trust 
I can sympathize ; but it seems to me that they fail 
to appreciate the magnitude of -the problem which 
the policy they recommend involves. No solution of 
that problem would be complete, or would be worthy 
of the enlightened views of the present time, which 
did not include, besides the mere manumission of the 
negi'o population, their protection against the efforts 
of their former masters to recover their lost power, 
and, no less, the provision for them of a career in the 
future. Now, let us suppose the first of these ends 

to ])e accomplished — emancipation to be decreed 

and overlooking the objection to what would be the 
necessary condition of an attempt to give effect to 
the second — the establishment in the South of a des- 
potic rule wielded ])y the central government how. 



THREE CONDITIONS TO BE SATISFIED. 293 

let US ask, is it proposed to provide a career for four 
millions of emancipated slaves ? It will be said, the 
land still remains to be cultivated ; and the labour 
of the negroes will be as necessary for its cultivation 
after they have been emancipated as before. The 
career for the emancipated negro would, therefore, 
be plain : he would, as a free labourer, hire his 
services to those who now take them by force. In a 
\vord, a population of four million slaves might be 
converted into a population of four million free 
labourers. This is, in truth, the only mode of 
solving the question that deserves serious atten- 
tion ; for I do not think that the plans, of which 
we have lately heard something, of a wholesale re- 
moval of negroes from the American continent- 
even where they are not advanced for the purpose 
simply of discrediting the cause of emancipation- 
can be so regarded. But, taking the policy of imme- 
diate and wholesale emancipation in its best form, 
and judging it in a spirit of candour, is it a 
reasonable expectation that, looking at all the 
conditions of the case, the result which is contem- 
plated would be realized,-that the negro, on the 
one hand, and the planter, on the other, would 
lend themselves to the scheme ? 1 am certainly not 
going to oppose to the proposal the exploded 
calumny of the incorrigible indolence of the negro. 
I am quite ready to admit, what nothing but the per- 



2 94 WHOLESALE EMANCIPATION. 

iiicious influence of slavery on flie negro would ever 
have given a pretext for denying, and what our 
AVest Indian experiment has now conclusively estab- 
lished,* that the negro in freedom is amenable to 
the same influences as the white man— that he can 

* A very important contribution to our knowledge on the work- 
ing of emancipation in the West Indies has just appeared from tho 
pen of Mr. Edward Bean UnderliiU, from whose work, ''The West 
Indies, tluir Social and Rdigious Condition:' I extract the foUowing 
testimony of Captain Darling, the present governor of Jamaica to 
the capacity of the negi-o for freedom .—"The proportion of thoso 
who are settling themselves industriously on their holdincrs and 
rapuUy rising in the social scale, while commanding the re.^ect of 
all classes of the community, and some of whom are, to a limited 
extent, themselves the employers of hired labour, paid for either 
in money or in kind, is, 1 am happy to think, not only steadily 
increasing, but at the present moment is far more extensive than 
was anticipated by those who are cognizant of all that took place 
m this colony in the earlier days of negro freedom. There can be 
no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable, and, I beheve 
trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming. If the real object 
of emancipation was to place the freed man in such a position that 
he might work out his o^^'n advancement in the social scale, and 
prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment of personal 
independence secured by constitutional liberty, Jamaica will afford 
more instances, even in proportion to its large population, of such 
gratifying results, than any other land in which African slavery 
once existed. Jamaica at this moment presents, as I believe at' 
once tho strongest proof of the complete success of the great mea 
sure of emancipation as relates to the capacity of the emancipated 
race for freedom, and tho most unfortunate instance of a descent in 
the scale of agricultural and conimerrial importance as a colonid 
rommunity.'_r/. 11 W. /„,//., n.ir SocinI and Reli^ous Condition, 
IT- 4.58, 4.^9- 



MAIN DIFFICULTY OF THE PllUBLKM. 295 

/appreciate as keenly independence, comfort, and 

\ affluence, and that, like liim, lie Avill work and save 

and speculate to obtain these blessings : neverthe- 

less, while conceding all this, I confess I am unable 

to see my way to the result that is here expected. 

The grand difficulty to be encountered in any 
scheme of emancipation which proposes to convert 
suddenly a regime of forced into one of hired labour, 
is the state of feeling which slavery leaves behind it 
in the minds of those who have taken part in its 
working. With the master there is a feeling of ex- 
asperation which leads him to thwart the operation 
of a system which has been forced upon him and 
which is odious to him, combined with a desire to 
re-establish under some new form his old tyranny ; 
while the emancipated bondman naturally desires to 
break for ever with a mode of life which is associated 
with his degradation. These principles of disturb- 
ance were brought fully into play in the West 
Indian experiment ;* but they were in that case 

* « The House of Assembly at tlie time of emancipation possessed 
the fullest powers to remedy any defect in that great measure. But 
it abused its powers. Instead of enacting laws calculated to elevate 
and benefit the people, it pursued the contrary course. By an 
Ejectment Act it gave to the planters the right to turn out the en- 
franchised peasantry, without regard to sex or age, at a week s 
notice, from the homes in which they had been born and bred ; to 
root up their provision grounds, and to cut down t- ^rmt trees 
which gave them both shelter and food; in order hat, through 
f,.^A,c.jl +I1P Tipwroes mi^ht be driven to 
dread of the consequences of refusal, tlie negioes mi^ 



-9(' Till; HICST IMMA.V 1- XPERIMIi NT. 

l..rgoly co„trolIe,l l„- the cuiulition of things in the 
" est Indian ishuuls. The strong ann of the British 
Government ,,„t an efteetnal restraint on the tyran- 
nical temper of the masters ;• while in some of the 
islands the preoeeupation of the land dosed against 
tlio slave the one refuge from a hated lot. This fo- 
e.xa,nple, was the ease in Barbadoes, and in thi. 
island, aecordingly, a s.ystcm of hired industry was 

work on the plnnlcrs' oira terms. . Driven f,.,„. i ■ ,■ 

the e>it-,te I.,, fl 1 , »■ . . . JJri\en from his cabin ou 

the estate bj he harsh or unj„.,t treatment of his former master the 
floe labourer had to hniU a coltage for hi„,«.|f. ImmeJiateW I 
cstoms on shingles for the roof to shelter his family fm 
eason, were more than doubled ; while the duty on the stave" ll 
hopsfor sugar hogsheads, the planter^- property, was grel^Te 

to ead to the abandonment of their dwellings for shanties of mud 
and bough.s."-r/,. Weu Indie,, fe., pp. a.S-.rS 

me'nt' " to w"' °' ^T""'' '■" '"' "*■ ''°'"^y •■" "" '" "^ '-«'- 

,!elentd fh? ; 1™ r"'™ °' "'" "■'"'" =-"">"-' ••- 

serf by the seUlsh partisan legislation of the Jamaiea planter. 

■ ■ ■ As slaves the people were never instnieted in husbandrv' 

r in n,,. general cultivation of the soil; as free men, the 1 '",,« 

h. utterly neglected ,hon,, and they have had t^ learnt I: 

""" ";" '" ■™-' P™— "f agrivultu,^. No attempt Z 

teen nrade ,„ prov.de a filing education for theiu, for Z'J^, 



ITS LESSON. 297 

easily introduced. But the case of Barbadoes was 
exceptional, and, in the main, emancipation in the 
West Indies has issued, not in the conversion of a 
population of slaves into a population of labourers 
working for hire, but in the creation of a numerous 
class of small negro proprietors, each cultivating in 
independence his own patch of ground. This result, 
however, is not that which is contemplated by those 
who desire wholesale emancipation in the Southern 
States, and indeed— owing to influences which had 
little existence in the West Indies, but which would 
be brought to bear upon the American negro — is not 
to be expected. But, passing by this, the thing at 
present to be attended to is that, wherever the waste 
land was abundant, the experiment, so far as the 
point at present under consideration is concerned, 
broke down. The plantations were extensively 
deserted, and the negroes, instead of becoming hired 
labourers, became peasant farmers on the vacant 

grant of some £2,500 a year cannot in any sense be said to be a 
provision for tlieir instruction. . . . Speaking of this feature 
of Jamaica legislation, Earl Grey, writing in 1853, says :— 'The 
Statute Book of the island for the last six years presents nearly a 
blank, as regards laws calculated to improve the concUtion of the 
population, and to raise them in the scale of civilization.' . . . . 
Happily the present governor, following m the steps of many of his 
predecessors, deals impartiaUy with every class, strives to prevent 
as far as possible the mischievous effects of the selfish policy that 
has been pursued, and exerts himself to rescue the government from 
the grasp of personal interest and ambition.'— /6i J. pp. 222, 223. 



298 NATURAL DIFFICULTIES OF EMANXIPATION. 

hind. Such has been the result of emaneij^ation in 
tlie West Indies. Those principles of disturbance 
which slavery leaves after it, though largely con- 
trolled, have yet been sufficiently powerful to pre- 
vent the general establishment of a system of hired 
labour.* 

Now wliat would be the chance of replacing 
negro slavery with hired labour in the Southern 
States ? If we look to the condition of society 
there, we find that the usual disturbing causes 
exist in exaggerated force, while there is little to 
counteract them in the other conditions of the case. 
Nowhere else has pro-slavery fanaticism been so 
strong ; the belief in the moral soundness of the 
institution has been nowhere so implicit ; nowhere, 
therefore, would tlie introduction of a system of 

* The following is ^Mr. Underhill's conclusion as to the general 
results of the experiment in Jamaica : — " Emancipation did not, 
indeed, bring wealth to the planter ; it did not restore fortunes 
already trembhng in the grasp of mortgagees and usurers ; it did 
nut bring back the i)almy days of foreign commerce to Kingston, 
nor assist in the maintenance of protective privileges in the mar- 
kets of Great Britain ; it did not give wisdom to planters, nor 
skill to agriculturists and manufacturers ; but it has broiiglit an 
amount of happiness, of improvement, of material wealth and pro- 
spective elevation to the enfranchised slave in which every lover of 
man must rejoice. Social order everywhere prevails. Iheaches of 
tlie peace are rare. Crimes, especially in their darker and moi-o 
sanguinary forms, are few. Persons and i>roperty are perfectly 
safe. The planter sleeps in security, dreads no insurrection, fears 
not the tonh uf llio iiiccndiarv, travels dav or iii-dit in the loneliest 



EXAGGERATED IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 299 

free industry have to encounter on the part of the 
masters such violent prejudices. Again, the desire 
of the emancipated negro to break with his former 
mode of life could scarce fail to be here extremely 
strong ; for, although the treatment of the slaves was 
perhaps harsher in the West Indies than it has for 
the most part been in the Confederate States, the 
degradation of the race had neither there nor else- 
where reached so low a point ; and, as a principle of 
repulsion, the feeling of shame would probably be 
not less powerful than that of hatred. On the other 
hand, who can suppose, — bearing in mind the un- 
worthy antipathy to the negro which still animates 
the great majority of the American people, and which 

solitudes without anxiety or care. The people are not drunkards, 
even if they he impure ; and this sad feature in the moral life of 
the people is meeting its check in the growing respect for the mar- 
riage tie, and the improved Ufe of the white community in their 
midst. . . . The general prospects of the island are improving. 
Estates are now but rarely abandoned, while in many places portions 
of old estates are being brought again under cultivation. It is 
admitted by all parties that sugar cultivation is profitable. At the 
same time, it is very doubtful whether any large proportion of the 
emancipated population will ever be induced to return to the estates, 
or, at least, in sufficient numbers to secure the enlargement of the 
area of cultivation to the extent of former days. Higher wages will 
do somewhat to obtain labourers, and they can be afforded, and the 
return of confidence will bring capital ; but the taste and habit of 
independence will contmue to operate, and induce the agi-icultural 
classes to cling to the Uttle holdings whirh they so industriously 
occupy."— ^/^-^ Tffs? Indws, pp. 455. 457- 



300 IMPOSSIBILITY OF PROTECTINU THE NEGKO. 

jK.Tliaj)S emancipation would do little to remove ; 
bearing in mind the elFects of a long complicity with 
shu'ery on the traditions of the Federal government 
— wh(j, I say, impressed with these facts, can suppose 
that tile negro of the Southern States would in that 
pe()])le and government find efficient protectors ? 
^^^)ulll there be no fear that the protector might 
have less sympjithy with the victim than even the 
tyrant against whom protection was claimed ? But 
even on the assumption that the spirit of the Fede- 
ral government and of the Xorthern people was 
excellent, would the task of protecting the negro be 
feasible in the South ? Throughout the whole slave 
domain, but especially in the more southern of the 
Slave States, there are, as we know, vast regions of 
wilderness. Over these wanders a miserable white 
population, idle, lawless, and cherishing for the 
negro a contempt, which, on his being raised to their 
level by emancipation, would be quickly converted 
into hatred. .Now, remembering what has happened 
in those West Indian islands which offer the nearest 
analogy to the present case — remembering what has 
occurred, for e\ani[)le, in Trinidad* — is it not almots 

* "Three years after einancii)ation, in 1841, tlio coiulitioii of the 
island [Trinidad] was most deplorable : the labourei-s had for the most 
part a}>an(loned the estates, and taken possession of plots of vacant 
land, especially in the viiinity of the towns, without purchase or 
lawful right. Vagrancy had become an alarming habit of great 
numbers ; every attemjit to take a census of the pojiulation was 



CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF THE MEAN WHITES. 3OI 

certain that, so soon as emancipation was decreed, 
the negroes would betake themselves to these wilds ? 
and, dispersed over this vast region, what would be 
their fate ? How could they be protected ? How 
could they be trained to a higher mode of life ? 
They would there encounter the white man in a 
condition as wretched as their own. His- example 
could not fail to influence them. They would ac- 
quire his vagabond tastes, and emulate his idleness. 
They would be wholly at his mercy. Eflicient pro- 
tection would be impossible over so vast a region. 
The growth of regular industry would be hopeless ; 
and the too probable result would be that the whole 
South would be abandoned to the dominion of na- 
ture, and jiegro and Avhite man go to ruin together. 
On the other hand, looking at the problem of 

baffled by the frequent migrations wliicli took place. Criminals 
easily evaded justice by absconding to places where they were un- 
known, or by hiding themselves in the dense forests which in all 
parts edged so closely on the cleared lands. Drunkenness increased 
to an enormous degree, assisted by planters who freely su])plied 
rum to the labourers to induce them to remain as cidtivators on 
their estates. High wages were obtained only to be squandered in 
amusement, revelry and dissipation ; at the same time, these high 
wages induced a diminished cultivation of food, and a corresponding 
increase in price and in the hnportation of provisions from the 
neighbouring islands and continent. The labourers steadily refused 
to enter into any contracts ishich would oblige them to rcmam in 
the service of a master : this would too much have resembled the 
state of slavery from which they had but just emerged."— TA^ 
West Indies, &c., p. 68-69. 



302 PROGKESSIVE EMANCIPATION 

emancipation, as it would present itself under that 
settlement of the American question which 1 have 
ventured to indicate as desira])le, I am unable to see 
tliat it would involve any difficulty which a govern- 
ment, really bent on accomplishing its object, might 
not be fairly expected to overcome. In the first 
place, it would, as thus presented, at once assume 
more manageable porportions. The evil might be 
dealt with in detail, and the experience acquired in 
the earlier efforts might be made available at the 
further stages of the process. The attack would in 
the first instance be directed against the weakest 
parts of the system — the institution in the border 
states. In those states, not only is slavery less 
strongly established than in the states further south, 
it is also milder in its character. The relation sub- 
sisting between master and slave being less embitter- 
ed, the obstacles to a re-establishment of their con- 
nexion upon a new footing would be less formidable. 
The wilderness, indeed — the greatest difficulty of the 
case — would not be wholly absent even in the border 
states ; but its dimensions would here be less vast, 
and these, as the abolition of slavery drew a fresh 
immigration from the adjoining states of the North, 
would in all probability be rapidly reduced. Even 
should tlie negroes repair to the wilds in consider- 
able numl)ers, the case would not be so hopeless. 
They would meet here in many districts, not the 



MORE HOPEFUL. 3°3 



" mean whites," but a population of free cultivators, 
whose example, it is not to be doubted, would exer- 
cise on their character and pursuits an influence as 
wholesome as that of the others would be baneful. 
In these peasant cultivators the free negro would 
behold industry in its most respectable and most 
prosperous form ; and, with their example before 
him, he would probably settle down into the same 
condition of life with them. 

But while in the reannexed states a career would 
be provided for the emancipated negro, his brother, 
stiU left in bondage in the South, would ere long 
find that for him also a new era was opening. Cut 
off from the rich virgin soils of the south-west, the 
older states of the Confederacy would quickly reach 
the condition of Virginia and Maryland. The me- 
vitable goal would soon come in sight, and the 
foreseen necessity of a change would gradually 
reconcile the minds of the planters to a pohcy of 
emancipation. The spirit in which the task would 
be undertaken, when prescribed to them as it were 
by Nature herself, would, it may be fairly expected, 
be far different from that with which it would be 
encountered, if enforced at the bayonet's pomt by 
hostile and hated Northerners. Self-interest, no 
longer overborne by passion or pride, would teach 
the necessity of calmly considering a position of 
which the urgency could no longer be concealed 



304 ULTIMATE EXTINCTION OF SLAVKKV. 

<^r evaded ; and tlie full knowledge and large expe- 
rience of the planters might be expected to^condiict 
tlum to that solution which would be most in accord- 
ance with the welfare of the negro and their own. 
Meanwhile, the policy of emancipation once com- 
menced, its effects would not be confined to the states 
which adopted it. Tlie working states, deprived of 
their supply of labour from the North, would be 
compelled to adopt new maxims of management.' 
The life of the slave would become for his master an 
object of increased consideration ; his comfort would 
be more attended to, and his condition would rapidly 
improve. AVith the progress of time the destiny of 
the older States would overtake these also, and 
thus, by a gradual but sure process, the greatest blot 
on modern civilization would be expunged from 
American soil. 



THE END. 



U. D. WEBB ^O son r.llNTKUS, I77. OULAT Bill NSW KK-Sri,KtT, |.( DL1> 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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